Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Carrie · 03-11-2003, 08:19 PM

This is in response to Christians who ask if I can think of a better plan than God�s plan. It follows from the �pop the cherry� thread......

To Christian, and Christians,

Yes, I can think of better ways of doing things than �God� did. Since mere humans can think of better ways, it�s obvious that the Bible was not written by a God. For example, it�s obvious that slavery is wrong, and always has been wrong. No one can convince me that it was somehow okay back then. Jesus didn�t even condemn slavery. His followers could own slaves. It wasn�t until Abraham Lincoln that slavery was abolished, and the
Bible had nothing to do with that. The Christians were using the Bible in defense of slavery. I think that if the Bible were written by a God, that God would not have allowed slavery.

God gave Moses the 10 commandments. And He gave a bunch of other laws. Couldn�t your God have made laws such as:

- "You shall not shun a woman who has been raped."

- "A man caught raping a woman must be imprisoned for 25 years."

- "Pre-marital sex is sin in the eyes of the Lord. Anyone who engages in it will be in danger of hell."

- "You shall not own slaves, since I freed you from slavery."

- "No man or woman shall have more than one spouse.�

- "Divorce is unlawful except in cases of infidelity, or physical or emotional abuse.�

- or "Divorce shall be permitted, but women may also seek a divorce.�

It�s crazy that we have better laws today, that are NOT said to be from God. And the best example is that the Bible�s God did not tell us to end slavery. We ended it OURSELVES. It�s not like 4000 years ago was so long ago that the people were unable
to handle the kind of laws and ways we have today. They weren�t friggin� Neanderthals!

And I don�t see why �God� couldn�t have just set up the Jesus plan in the first place. (This is kind of "out there" but bare with me). I don�t think nearly 2000 years of the Old Testament ways had to pass before people could understand Jesus. If the purpose of Jesus was to show people what God was like, and to be the sacrifice for sin, he could have come down in the first place.
- Jesus could have told the people he was the Son of God and they would have believed him. God could have said in a loud booming voice, �this is my Son� like he said in the New Testament. Heck, the people believed that Moses was God�s man.
- So Jesus could have done miracles, and taught the people The Way, and told them to follow him. They wouldn�t need to be protected from sinful nations because Christians today aren�t protected from sinful people, and they manage okay. So Jesus would have told his followers to also go and teach others, rather than go and kill others.
- And he would have told them that he�d die for their sins and then rise from the dead. And all who followed him would be forgiven. Then sure enough, many of them would not like Jesus� teachings or believe him, and so they would have killed him. And then he�d have rose from the dead, and explained to his followers that he died in their place, so they�d never have to die spiritually, and rather than go to hell, they�d go to heaven. And they would have been grateful and would have gone and taught the rest of the world.
* They could have even taught against things like slavery. They could have had morals and ways even better than we have today! All those years of genocide never had to happen. All those years of slavery never had to happen. Innocent women would not have had to die if they couldn�t prove virginity. Women would not have had to marry their rapists. Their whole culture could have been right in the first place, if God had just taught them the right ways in the first place!

I think that any God that is going to write a book for the whole world to follow is going to write a book that is full of good ways, that cannot get any better. And He would write this book to be very clear and easy for anyone to understand. There wouldn�t even be any �seeming� contradictions. He would want everyone to know his word as Truth, and let them choose to follow it or not.

I don�t see why this God can�t make the Bible so obvious
that no one could ever doubt it (like we agnostics / atheists do). And no, a perfectly understandable Bible wouldn�t guarantee that people would follow it. Luke 16:31 says, �If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if
someone rises from the dead.� So even if God sent a dead person to warn people, that still wouldn�t work. Shoot, even �seeing� God was not enough to get the Israelites to
behave. They had the Lord go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud. And they heard God too! They said, �The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire.� So they heard the terrifying voice of God, yet they still ended up rebelling against Him!

Today, God doesn�t even have a convincing book for us, yet expects us to believe?! He sure isn�t speaking to us from fire or appearing before us in a cloud anymore. Even the signs like �speaking in tongues� are said by many churches to no longer exist! So God could at least give us a Bible that isn�t so confusing!!

God could at least have written Matthew 24 (which seems to be about the end of the world) in such a way that there would not have to be so many different explanations of what it means. There is no agreement about it, yet it looks pretty important to me, like something we ought to understand. Some churches think Jesus came back in 70 AD and gathered the believers out of Jerusalem. Some think that in 70 AD Jesus gathered all the Old Testament saints to heaven. The 70 ADers don�t think Matthew 24 was written for us today. Other churches think that Matthew 24 is a prophecy about the end of the world, and they think it�s going to happen soon or in the future. Notice the best selling Tim
LaHaye books that are about the end times? The whole thing is totally confusing. Who is right? Each church thinks they have the answer. So should we be looking for the �abomination that causes desolation� or not? Is there going to be rapture while we are still alive, or not? Go look online at all the different explanations of Matthew 24 and you�ll see what I mean.

However, if you just read Matthew 24 as Jesus meant it - that the end of the entire world was going to come within the generation of the apostles - it makes lots of sense. It�s just that it didn�t happen, so Jesus� prophecy did not come true, so Jesus was not from God, just like the Bible is not from God.

A lot of people feel they have really good REASON not to believe the Bible, and it�s not that they just don�t want to live a good lifestyle! Many doubters have lived the Christian life happily for years, but they ended up having trouble understanding and believing it. So they looked into their doubts, and found out they had good reason to doubt! So they ended up becoming unbelievers.

No one wants to live a life based on myth, even if that
life has been good to them. People who want to know the truth are going to keep on looking for it, even after they think they�ve found it.

Unfortunately, many Christians simply shut off their brain after becoming believers. They are glad to think they have finally found the truth, and glad they don�t have to search any longer. They have a simple answer for everything - God.

But as for me, I�m happy to have to keep on searching. I don�t think we�ll ever know the answers. And that�s okay. It�s fun to keep on searching. It makes life interesting. Not knowing is what
makes life so mysterious and amazing. I am in awe of the world in a way that I never was as a Christian. I�m happier. I feel nicer. I feel free. And I�m grateful to live in America, a country that has wonderful man made laws. Laws that give me the right to speak my mind, marry who I want, and believe what I want.

I�m glad that I don�t have to be a Christian.

EspressoSnail · 03-11-2003, 08:25 PM

Well... for one... god didn't stick his/her/its hand out of the sky and write that book... humans made it up and wrote it down.

Spaz · 03-12-2003, 05:02 AM

Well, just a nitpick, but slavery wasn't abolished in America until Abraham Lincoln, most countries had already given it up by then, we were one of the last.

Other than that, yeah, you're right

gsx1138 · 03-12-2003, 07:22 AM

I've been a minister and done missionary work. The Bible doesn't have any answers to anything unless you are herding goats in the middle of the desert. Even then, there are other "holy" books written much better. People choose Christianity because it is easy. Plain an simple. In a country with dwindling attention spans it is nice, for them, to have a religion that requires nothing but obedience and money.
Many Christians like to blow it out of proportion to make it seem like they are really sacrificing something. They don't have any great persecution to call their own so they have to make one up in order to feel more important. Christianity is one of the easiest religions around. You can get by with knowing a passage or two. Hell, sometimes you don't even need to know that. Know that Jesus is Lord and you're saved.
Almost all of what you said is correct. I think a 5 year old could come up with a better set of rules than those found in the Bible.

Godless Dave · 03-12-2003, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spaz
Well, just a nitpick, but slavery wasn't abolished in America until Abraham Lincoln, most countries had already given it up by then, we were one of the last.

Other than that, yeah, you're right

As another nitpick, some countries still practice slavery - Sudan for example. And China still uses forced labor.

bocajeff · 03-12-2003, 11:02 AM

Slightly off topic, but I think I can come up with a better plan also.

Create us all directly into heaven and be done with it.

Carrie · 03-12-2003, 11:43 AM

Spaz and Godless Dave,

Really? I didn't know that other countries abolished slavery first.
Sorry. How America-centric and ignorant of me. But that's interesting to know. Thank you for the nit-picking. So America has always been a bit behind the times I guess.

Some countries have legalized the use of drugs, outlawed the death penalty, and become much more peaceable than America too.

But some other countries still practice slavery? Wow. I wonder what the Christian missionaries in those countries tell them? If they say it's wrong, a man from Sudan could say, "well the Bible does not say that."

And hey, thanks all for reading my post. I know it was a long one.

Godless Dave · 03-12-2003, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Carrie
Spaz and Godless Dave,

Really? I didn't know that other countries abolished slavery first.

Please forward me the names of all your high school history teachers, so I can smack them upside the head. I believe France abolished it after the Revolution. Not sure about the UK but it was before 1865. Although they still allowed slavery in some of their colonies even after it was abolished at home, I think they had even ended it in their colonies before 1865. It had certainly been abolished in Canada before then - that's why so many American slaves tried to escape to Canada. They were safer there than in the "free" northern states.

Quote:

Originally posted by Carrie
But some other countries still practice slavery? Wow. I wonder what the Christian missionaries in those countries tell them? If they say it's wrong, a man from Sudan could say, "well the Bible does not say that."

It's actually northern, Muslim Sudan where slavery is practiced. Most slaves are Christians from southern Sudan. I think it's kind of dangerous for missionaries in the north. I don't have any news links handy, but a Google search should help you out.

China uses prison labor, but a lot of their prisoners are political prisoners. Think about that the next time you buy something with a "made in China" label.

Also, in some Muslim countries women are essentially chattel. They can't be bought and sold legally, but they can be married without their consent.

Kosh · 03-12-2003, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by madmardigan
Slightly off topic, but I think I can come up with a better plan also.

Create us all directly into heaven and be done with it.

What's wrong with weekly status meetings? I'm sure God could figure out a way to conference everyone in....

doc58 · 03-12-2003, 01:49 PM

Kosh,
I like that idea. Like any good leader, he could give personal, weekly evaluations to help us live our lives in the most productive and glorifying way. He could patiently answer our questions and be like a really good father.

Have you ever noticed that Christians talk about the alleged "personal relationship" with God? But look at the local Christian bookstore and look at the titles that address Gods apparent absence it times of trouble like, "Where is God When It Hurts" or "When God Doesn't Make Sense". Christians are puzzled about Gods absence. They cannot make sense of why a good God would see people in unimaginable pain and not address them. The only thing they can think of to do is write dumb poems like "Footprints". It is kind of sad that the answer is staring them in the face- god isn't there when it hurts, there is no sense, and the only footrpints in the sand are your own.

Have you ever heard, "God won't give you more than you can bear?". I have seen plenty of people, Christians and Non that have been given more than they can bear. People totally wiped out by life, never to recover.

03-11-2003, 08:19 PM	#1
Carrie Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Midwest Posts: 424	Christians will give me lots of shit for this one! This is in response to Christians who ask if I can think of a better plan than God�s plan. It follows from the �pop the cherry� thread...... To Christian, and Christians, Yes, I can think of better ways of doing things than �God� did. Since mere humans can think of better ways, it�s obvious that the Bible was not written by a God. For example, it�s obvious that slavery is wrong, and always has been wrong. No one can convince me that it was somehow okay back then. Jesus didn�t even condemn slavery. His followers could own slaves. It wasn�t until Abraham Lincoln that slavery was abolished, and the Bible had nothing to do with that. The Christians were using the Bible in defense of slavery. I think that if the Bible were written by a God, that God would not have allowed slavery. God gave Moses the 10 commandments. And He gave a bunch of other laws. Couldn�t your God have made laws such as: - "You shall not shun a woman who has been raped." - "A man caught raping a woman must be imprisoned for 25 years." - "Pre-marital sex is sin in the eyes of the Lord. Anyone who engages in it will be in danger of hell." - "You shall not own slaves, since I freed you from slavery." - "No man or woman shall have more than one spouse.� - "Divorce is unlawful except in cases of infidelity, or physical or emotional abuse.� - or "Divorce shall be permitted, but women may also seek a divorce.� It�s crazy that we have better laws today, that are NOT said to be from God. And the best example is that the Bible�s God did not tell us to end slavery. We ended it OURSELVES. It�s not like 4000 years ago was so long ago that the people were unable to handle the kind of laws and ways we have today. They weren�t friggin� Neanderthals! And I don�t see why �God� couldn�t have just set up the Jesus plan in the first place. (This is kind of "out there" but bare with me). I don�t think nearly 2000 years of the Old Testament ways had to pass before people could understand Jesus. If the purpose of Jesus was to show people what God was like, and to be the sacrifice for sin, he could have come down in the first place. - Jesus could have told the people he was the Son of God and they would have believed him. God could have said in a loud booming voice, �this is my Son� like he said in the New Testament. Heck, the people believed that Moses was God�s man. - So Jesus could have done miracles, and taught the people The Way, and told them to follow him. They wouldn�t need to be protected from sinful nations because Christians today aren�t protected from sinful people, and they manage okay. So Jesus would have told his followers to also go and teach others, rather than go and kill others. - And he would have told them that he�d die for their sins and then rise from the dead. And all who followed him would be forgiven. Then sure enough, many of them would not like Jesus� teachings or believe him, and so they would have killed him. And then he�d have rose from the dead, and explained to his followers that he died in their place, so they�d never have to die spiritually, and rather than go to hell, they�d go to heaven. And they would have been grateful and would have gone and taught the rest of the world. * They could have even taught against things like slavery. They could have had morals and ways even better than we have today! All those years of genocide never had to happen. All those years of slavery never had to happen. Innocent women would not have had to die if they couldn�t prove virginity. Women would not have had to marry their rapists. Their whole culture could have been right in the first place, if God had just taught them the right ways in the first place! I think that any God that is going to write a book for the whole world to follow is going to write a book that is full of good ways, that cannot get any better. And He would write this book to be very clear and easy for anyone to understand. There wouldn�t even be any �seeming� contradictions. He would want everyone to know his word as Truth, and let them choose to follow it or not. I don�t see why this God can�t make the Bible so obvious that no one could ever doubt it (like we agnostics / atheists do). And no, a perfectly understandable Bible wouldn�t guarantee that people would follow it. Luke 16:31 says, �If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead.� So even if God sent a dead person to warn people, that still wouldn�t work. Shoot, even �seeing� God was not enough to get the Israelites to behave. They had the Lord go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud. And they heard God too! They said, �The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire.� So they heard the terrifying voice of God, yet they still ended up rebelling against Him! Today, God doesn�t even have a convincing book for us, yet expects us to believe?! He sure isn�t speaking to us from fire or appearing before us in a cloud anymore. Even the signs like �speaking in tongues� are said by many churches to no longer exist! So God could at least give us a Bible that isn�t so confusing!! God could at least have written Matthew 24 (which seems to be about the end of the world) in such a way that there would not have to be so many different explanations of what it means. There is no agreement about it, yet it looks pretty important to me, like something we ought to understand. Some churches think Jesus came back in 70 AD and gathered the believers out of Jerusalem. Some think that in 70 AD Jesus gathered all the Old Testament saints to heaven. The 70 ADers don�t think Matthew 24 was written for us today. Other churches think that Matthew 24 is a prophecy about the end of the world, and they think it�s going to happen soon or in the future. Notice the best selling Tim LaHaye books that are about the end times? The whole thing is totally confusing. Who is right? Each church thinks they have the answer. So should we be looking for the �abomination that causes desolation� or not? Is there going to be rapture while we are still alive, or not? Go look online at all the different explanations of Matthew 24 and you�ll see what I mean. However, if you just read Matthew 24 as Jesus meant it - that the end of the entire world was going to come within the generation of the apostles - it makes lots of sense. It�s just that it didn�t happen, so Jesus� prophecy did not come true, so Jesus was not from God, just like the Bible is not from God. A lot of people feel they have really good REASON not to believe the Bible, and it�s not that they just don�t want to live a good lifestyle! Many doubters have lived the Christian life happily for years, but they ended up having trouble understanding and believing it. So they looked into their doubts, and found out they had good reason to doubt! So they ended up becoming unbelievers. No one wants to live a life based on myth, even if that life has been good to them. People who want to know the truth are going to keep on looking for it, even after they think they�ve found it. Unfortunately, many Christians simply shut off their brain after becoming believers. They are glad to think they have finally found the truth, and glad they don�t have to search any longer. They have a simple answer for everything - God. But as for me, I�m happy to have to keep on searching. I don�t think we�ll ever know the answers. And that�s okay. It�s fun to keep on searching. It makes life interesting. Not knowing is what makes life so mysterious and amazing. I am in awe of the world in a way that I never was as a Christian. I�m happier. I feel nicer. I feel free. And I�m grateful to live in America, a country that has wonderful man made laws. Laws that give me the right to speak my mind, marry who I want, and believe what I want. I�m glad that I don�t have to be a Christian.

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03-11-2003, 08:25 PM	#2
EspressoSnail Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Kentucky Posts: 207	Well... for one... god didn't stick his/her/its hand out of the sky and write that book... humans made it up and wrote it down.

03-12-2003, 05:02 AM	#3
Spaz Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: 6th Circle of Hell Posts: 1,093	Well, just a nitpick, but slavery wasn't abolished in America until Abraham Lincoln, most countries had already given it up by then, we were one of the last. Other than that, yeah, you're right

03-12-2003, 07:22 AM	#4
gsx1138 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Bremerton, Washington Posts: 379	I've been a minister and done missionary work. The Bible doesn't have any answers to anything unless you are herding goats in the middle of the desert. Even then, there are other "holy" books written much better. People choose Christianity because it is easy. Plain an simple. In a country with dwindling attention spans it is nice, for them, to have a religion that requires nothing but obedience and money. Many Christians like to blow it out of proportion to make it seem like they are really sacrificing something. They don't have any great persecution to call their own so they have to make one up in order to feel more important. Christianity is one of the easiest religions around. You can get by with knowing a passage or two. Hell, sometimes you don't even need to know that. Know that Jesus is Lord and you're saved. Almost all of what you said is correct. I think a 5 year old could come up with a better set of rules than those found in the Bible.

03-12-2003, 11:02 AM	#6
bocajeff Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: HelL.A. Posts: 1,157	Slightly off topic, but I think I can come up with a better plan also. Create us all directly into heaven and be done with it.

03-12-2003, 11:43 AM	#7
Carrie Regular Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Midwest Posts: 424	Spaz and Godless Dave, Really? I didn't know that other countries abolished slavery first. Sorry. How America-centric and ignorant of me. But that's interesting to know. Thank you for the nit-picking. So America has always been a bit behind the times I guess. Some countries have legalized the use of drugs, outlawed the death penalty, and become much more peaceable than America too. But some other countries still practice slavery? Wow. I wonder what the Christian missionaries in those countries tell them? If they say it's wrong, a man from Sudan could say, "well the Bible does not say that." And hey, thanks all for reading my post. I know it was a long one.

03-12-2003, 01:49 PM	#10
doc58 Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 101	Kosh, I like that idea. Like any good leader, he could give personal, weekly evaluations to help us live our lives in the most productive and glorifying way. He could patiently answer our questions and be like a really good father. Have you ever noticed that Christians talk about the alleged "personal relationship" with God? But look at the local Christian bookstore and look at the titles that address Gods apparent absence it times of trouble like, "Where is God When It Hurts" or "When God Doesn't Make Sense". Christians are puzzled about Gods absence. They cannot make sense of why a good God would see people in unimaginable pain and not address them. The only thing they can think of to do is write dumb poems like "Footprints". It is kind of sad that the answer is staring them in the face- god isn't there when it hurts, there is no sense, and the only footrpints in the sand are your own. Have you ever heard, "God won't give you more than you can bear?". I have seen plenty of people, Christians and Non that have been given more than they can bear. People totally wiped out by life, never to recover.

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