Corgan Sow

Since deconverting from Christianity a few months ago, I seem to be more phobic when it comes to mixing Christians, compared to people of other faiths. There's no fundy-ism in my country for Christians, but my experience in church has been traumatic. I still remember how my youth pastor agreed with Pat Robertson that 9/11 is punishment from God, how she agreed that witches should be harassed because they're more evil than atheists, and so on.

I started to lose interest in theological arguments recently because I know fact in fact. Christian God exists or not, He is a fucked up schizophrenic bigot. I cringe in disgust when intelligent people get brainwashed in ad hoc and justify people's condemnation as if it is okay. Like one II user in a testimonial, He deserves a universal comdemnation, not worship. Don't use contradictions in the Bible anymore as an excuse, use the OT as your weapon. Even reading the Bible itself brings a hell of a headache.

davidH

To judge God by what you see in humans is maybe not the right approach.
I disagree with your youth pastor saying that witches should be harassed etc. That's not what Jesus taught - love your enemies, bless those that curse you etc.

Sadly some people who are Christians are disallusioned etc. As from your case you seem to have found out.
About September 11th - The word punishment is not what I would use.
The hijackers did it of their own free will - I believe that God has used the horror of it all as a wake-up call to people. But I don't see it as a punishment.
Some people bring up the thing about the people in the tower - why did it have to be them, did they do something wrong? etc.

I like Jesus' example that is so so relevant - where he asks his disciples - Do you think that the people who the tower fell on were sinners that they were punished. - He then says No.

I'm sorry you had that experience at the church. It is really sad, and yet it is also so common - but what it all boils down to in the end is you making up your own mind about what is said.
People here talk a lot about indoctrination and mindless people etc - But that is not the case, you were there and you made up your mind on certain things - don't doubt that no one else is like you, for we all are. Whatever I am taught - I read the Bible and see if it has been taken out of context and whether it is what the Bible says. I make up my own mind and I chose of my own free will to be a Christian.

You also mention about reading the OT and you see God there. The destruction of the people of Canaan - the near extermination of them. How could a loving God do that?! Surely it contradicts everything else about God....

That is a common view - most people see the Christian God as a loving God - nearly Hippy like. All peace and love etc.
Many Christians would also probably see God like this.
However they miss out on the Holiness and justness of God, there always comes a time when God will judge the sin of the people.
In Noah's time the people wouldn't listen and everything became so bad that God couldn't sit back and watch anymore. So he judged the world - wiping all out except the righteous.

Harsh? Extremely so - yet it was needed or mankind would have wiped itsself out.

The conquest of Canaan - many people just look at what the Israelites did in killing loads of people - but they fail to look at the people that the Israelites killed.
These people sacrificed their children to gods, sexually immoral - even their gods were worshipped by all this. And yet this was the land that way back, God promised to Israel - these people had plently of time to repent (prob around 600 years or more) and yet they got worse and worse. God's judgement on them was through Israel. That was Israel's land and they couldn't live along side these peoples and remain true to God (as you see in judges).

So remember that God is a God of love and forgiveness - but he will not sit idly by and watch sin getting worse and worse - he will judge.

And as Revelation shows - that day is fast approaching. Look at society today and see how badly it has deteriorated in the last 100 years - as the Bible says , As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be like near the end.

Corgan Sow, test what you have been taught, make your own mind up. You have made a step to make up your own mind about things, which I commend you for.
All the best.
Dave

sullster

Good for you, Corgan Sow,for deconverting. It is so great to be out of the prison of theism. There is a vast world out there which will open to you. The nastiness of christianity will fade quicker, if you get thinking about other things.
Congratulations!

Fire Jack

"And as Revelation shows - that day is fast approaching. Look at society today and see how badly it has deteriorated in the last 100 years - as the Bible says , As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be like near the end."

I just love this, at any point in time someone could have said this and I am sure they have. "Oh look how bad the world is it must be ending soon" bullshit. Out of all the places in history I would rather be-- here. People didn't have shorter life spans 100 years ago becuase they were happier.
I wonder how many people were sure the world was going to end during world war 2, that was a pretty low point in history.

Autonemesis

Why not? Aren't humans the center of God's plan? By what criteria should we judge God, if not by what we see in His creations? Since He, Himself is not forthcoming, what else is there?

Wouldn't it have been more humane (and possibly more effective and clear) for Him to have stuck His head out of the clouds to yell "Wake Up!" What are we supposed to "wake up" to as a result of God having declined to prevent 9/11 from occurring?

Yes, and many people avoid answering the question, just like you did.

Why does it have to be this way? Can God decide not to judge after all? If not, sez who?

How do you know that? God never gave them the chance.

So will I (hypothetically, of course: I don't actually believe in any of this - but that'd be my reaction on Judgement Day).

They've been saying that for the past 1950 years or so.

Let's see, how has society deteriorated:

We have the highest literacy rate in history.
We have the lowest mortality rate in hisory.
We have the highest standard of living that any society has ever achieved.
We have conquered all the ancient diseases that used to plague humans.

We have problems, sure, but overall: what's not to like? This time is nothing like the times depicted in Genesis around the time of the flood.

Heathen Dawn

Topic title: Is it me or I think Christians are a bunch of heartless robots?

In essence, such religions of submission as Christianity and Islam are great works of human programming. When Paul talks about "bringing every thought in captivity to Christ", or when the Qur'an talks about "selling one's life to Allah", they're running the lines of a program for humans to follow blindly.

I often hear it argued that mass murderers such as Inquisitors, Jihad-fighters and Nazis behaved like beasts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Beasts don't do such things. To serially, plannedly kill people is a trait of computerized, binary entities. So they did not behave like beasts, they behaved like machines. If HumanBeing = Unbeliever Then call DoEvil(HumanBeing) is the program they follow.

Wizardry

Whaa?

Are you actually defending genocide?

I mean, out of all the possible actions that might possibly considered wrong in all circumstances, I would think that rampant genocide might be somewhere near the top of the list. I just don't see any possible justification for the murder of an entire race of people. I don't even think that genocide is an appropriate pretext for genocide. We wouldn't have been justified in wiping the Germans off the face of the planet for what they did to the Jews, for example. Do you disagree? Or are you willing to tell every German alive that if you had your way you'd have killed their parents for their crimes or assent thereof?

First of all, in what world are you living if you think sexual immorality is a proper pretext for the taking of human life. Should we give the death penalty to those who engage in premarital sex? Take a gun to the heads of those girls that happen to get knocked up in high school? I hope not.

Child sacrifice? What's a child sacrifice here or there compared to the extermination of an entire society? Child sacrifice is bad, but just wiping an entire group of human beings off the face of the planet is some orders of magnitude worse. And don't pretend that the Israelites had some kind of compunction about killing their children in the name of God. Remember Abraham and Issac? If God hadn't said "just kidding" at the last moment, the Israelites would have been carrying out the exact same atrocities. The Cannanites' only error, it seems, is that their gods didn't say "gotcha."

Moreover, you're using Isrealite accounts of Cannanite behavior. Bad move. The bias is so bleedingly obvious I shouldn't even need to point out that these people probably weren't above distorting Cannanite behavior to justify their own dispicable actions. If the Christians were to be wiped off the face of the earth by the Muslims, there'd be some Muslim apologist claiming that what they did wasn't so bad because the Christians engaged in ritualistic cannibalism and allowed their women to become whores by letting them walk around with their heads uncovered and with quasi-equal rights (depending of course on when this happens). The Nazis accused the Jews of killing children and using their blood in religious celebrations. Obviously a lie. But if our only records of the Jews were from the Nazis, we might all believe that and take the extermination of that vile race to be one of the greatest services to humanity ever performed.

Then God shouldn't have let the Cannanites on that land to begin with. And need I remind you again about Israelite propaganda?

What, are they supposed to magically be aware of the Torah's laws and regulations? Did God see fit to appear to them in all his glory and implore them to repent, or at the very least send a prophet and social reformer like Moses to shape up the people of Cannan. Or did he just order their deaths with a clear conscience?

How nice. Why snap your omnipotent fingers and do the deed slowly when you have the inefficiency and cruelty of early metal weapons at your disposal? Do have any idea what kind of blood bath that likely was? I'd like you to visualize the blood drenched streets, the partially dismembered and disemboweled bodies littering the houses and town squares, the elderly men and women with slit throats, a lone child crying out for his mother before being silenced by the sword of an Israelite soldier. I would like for you to think of all the people that might have been, the people you might have been friends with had you known them, the hopes and dreams that were silenced by the rapacity of God's army. I'd like you to pretend to have some empathy with other human beings who may not share your outlook or your morality for a second. I'd like for you to realize that if this is history rather than a work of fiction, that these were actual people and not one-dimensional charicatures from a low production value "Stories of the Bible" church video. I'd like for you to think of what it might be like to see your best friends, your wife, your child slaughtered by an invading army. I'd like you to take one more look around that scene at Cannan and consider the waste of human life. Then, talk to me about the glory of God.

Yes. It's a shame that God couldn't have foresight enough not to allow the Cannanites on the land to begin with rather than requiring a senseless slaughter.

I tremble to consider the work of a vengeful God.

He'll act with compassion and attempt to persuade these people through harmless demonstrations of his power that he is the one true God and should be obeyed? He'll demonstrate his infinite patience and accept any initial setbacks that may occur so that he will not have to use violence? He'll at least show a human level of compassion and accept people despite their flaws and shortcomings and offences towards him?

Oh, my mistake.

Society is deteriorating? Really? Tell me, what exactly do you find so repulsive about modern society? I happen to think that society is better now than it has ever been. You wouldn't know that to hear people talking about society, but there are less and less utter injustices today than there have ever been. Slavery is no more. Apartheid and segregation have been eliminated. The poor aren't condemned to live in filth in the industrialized nations. Children aren't force to work in mines and in dangerous factories. The mentally ill are no thrown into rat-infested prisons. Women are no longer forced to serve the men in their immediate family and are now free to choose their husbands rather than being given away by their fathers. They are no longer required to be the sexual slaves and maids for their husbands. They are allowed to be educated.

Society is free. Western civilization no longer is forced to suffer under the yolk of tyranny. Blind nepotism no longer rules the courts and legislatures. Wars amongst ourselves have all but ceased. People are free to hold their own religious opinions without being burned at the stake for heresy, like say that there is no God(good for me) or that the bible should be the primary source of religious authority(good for you, I presume).

This is deterioration?

Corgan Sow

It's important to keep in mind that Christianity is the work of a first century mind attempting to make sense of the world around him. The Christian God does not actually exist, so it is not actually a schizophrenic bigot. It is merely an invention, it poses no threat. What is percieved to day as bigotry on the part of the Christian God is the societal prejudices of its author. When the full exent of the sufferings of hell are contemplated, it seems brutal, and when the full complexities of human life are taken into account, it seems unconscionably so. Remember, however, that the originators of the concept did not consider the idea to the logical extremes, they just needed away to account for the success of those percieved as evil and the suffering of the virtuous, so they invented an afterlife that evened the score. This is also how the average Christian sees these things. They don't remember that actual human beings were in those buildings when they start attributing it to the wrath of God. It remains abstract and impersonal to them.

There is no need to be any more angry with a god than with any other fictional character. If you find yourself cursing Iago or Raskolnikov as much as you do Yahweh, then fine. If not, perhaps you are taking the Biblical narrative a bit too seriously.

lpetrich

I find it very depressing that some people are willing to celebrate Biblical genocide as the right thing to do. This is worse than Nazi apologetics, because Nazi apologists are best-known for claiming that the Nazis had never committed genocide.

And saying that these people deserved genocide is EXACTLY what the Nazis had claimed. They claimed that Jews had done lots and lots of Evil Things, and thus deserved their fate. And in public, they maintained a posture that they were being very forgiving of the Jews' many sins, only "resettling" them.

And this business about God being holy is pure bullshit. That is NO excuse from genocide, when an omnipotent being could, without trouble, imprint a tendency to behave virtuously on everybody.

At which point I expect some whines about free will. But one will have plenty of free will left. And Jesus Christ had taught that one ought to remove body parts that lead one astray. So why not do the same with free will?

Corgan Sow

To judge God by what you see in humans is maybe not the right approach.
I disagree with your youth pastor saying that witches should be harassed etc. That's not what Jesus taught - love your enemies, bless those that curse you etc.

Read: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. (Luke 19:27)

About September 11th - The word punishment is not what I would use.
The hijackers did it of their own free will - I believe that God has used the horror of it all as a wake-up call to people. But I don't see it as a punishment.


praise the LORD!

People commit rape on a 8-month old toddler and the bashed her head on the rock - Free Will.

A 12-year old boy gang-sodomised by brother's friends - free Will.

Christians burning witches on stakes - Free Will

Priests molesting children assigned to them. - Free Will.

I don't have a problem.

But to say that whoever does not believe in your God will burn in hell eternally - that's like pointing a gun at someone's face. That's not Free Will, that's threat. Well, that person can still choose though.

However they miss out on the Holiness and justness of God, there always comes a time when God will judge the sin of the people.


And why your God created them with defect in the first place? Think this parable. Say a Sultan of Brunei commissioned you to built a car. Then after completing it, he tests the car. A few miles, and BOOM! The car explodes.

Your Christian God blames the car for that Sultan's casualty.

In Noah's time the people wouldn't listen and everything became so bad that God couldn't sit back and watch anymore. So he judged the world - wiping all out except the righteous.

Yeah, talking about an omnipotent God. Is it justified if I say your God can rape a toddler at will and still be said He has never sinned because He is God?

Corgan Sow, test what you have been taught, make your own mind up. You have made a step to make up your own mind about things, which I commend you for.

Oh, on the contrary.

All Christians like you who believe this God's justification are worst than ().

(Well, I edited it not to offend Dave, but you get what i mean.)

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Corgan Sow ]

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Corgan Sow ]</p>

Corgan Sow

And as Revelation shows - that day is fast approaching. Look at society today and see how badly it has deteriorated in the last 100 years - as the Bible says , As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be like near the end.

Oh I forgot to quote this.

What do you is deteriorated?

- homosexuality encouraged?

- feminism encouraged?

- more and more people are leaving Christianity?

- too much sexual immorality?

Funny, because I bet your answers would be above.

No, no. I don't care if a Christian says they believe in Yahweh out of fear, because that was how I personally feel at the beginning. When a Christian justifies it without feeling remorse, you get my topic.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Corgan Sow ]</p>