Atheists know God better than any Christian, Jew, or Muslim can hope...

Wow...

I agree with Tadashi on that one. Man didn't see that coming.

 

I just love how every single Christian has his own definition of what a "true" or "false" Christian is. If I was to ask every single Christian what' s his take on the Bible (or every Muslim what' s his take on the Coran etc ...) I would end up with thousands of viewpoints, most probably claiming to be closer to the "right" viewpoint than mine since I' m agnostic.

You know what they say, when you talk to God it' s prayer, when God talks to you it' s schizophrenia (copyright Fox Mulder).
Correct me if I' m wrong, isn' t God supposed to speak in riddles ? I' m not sure the Bible, given the way it' s written and the many translations (i.e. modifications) it went through, is any easier to decipher correctly.
Plus, you know, beware of false prophets, bladiblablablah ...

So ... he created us in His image, gave us the ability to feel and think, gave us free will ... and yet the only way to fully understand him (if that' s even possible) isn' t to listen to the mind and heart that He gave us, but rather to read a damn book that nothing can prove to be legit, believe that He exists, talk to him and follow rituals (rituals which, for a strange reason, involve giving money to the religious order which translated, modified, and maybe even wrote the Bible to begin with) ? I' m afraid I don' t get it ...

 

It depends on whether or not the christian, and the atheist have looked at, and thought about religion. If a christian looks at the holy books rules ect. of every religion, and decides that they believe that Christianity is the correct view, that puts them closer to God than someone who looks at the religions and decides God probably doesn't exist, and becomes atheist. Similarly, someone who doesn't look at any of the religions but Christianity, and decides that God must be real, and Christianity right, because God is saying things that they believe to be correct, is closer to God than someone who looks only at Christianity and decides God isn't real, and does exactly what god is saying to (as much as the christian is) anyway. But, if you choose to look at those who only do what is right out of fear, they are equally far away from God, the one who does what is right because they think that God will punish them if they don't, and the one who does what is right because they fear that the Government will punish them if they don't.

 

For me it all really matters how people see it. I am an Atheist. I live a fairly okay, life, it's not the greatest. For what you said above about killing somebody, it is much like that. I don't not do or do things because 'God' says it's good or not, I do what I think is right, me myself, and it is my choices only, not 'Gods' choices, that will land me in heaven or hell, if there is even a heaven or hell. I do admit some things from 'God' are very smart in my opinion, some of his ways, but it's up to me how to decide how to live my life, because in the end it will only come down to what I did personally, not what a 'God' told me was the right thing to do. When there is something I'm about to do it's not because 'God's' telling me to do/not do it, it's because I want to do/not do it.

 

I must disagree with those who think that we're afraid of God.
I'm Christian (Presbyterian), and I do NOT follow my religion out of fear God will punish me. In my mind, God loves everyone, He created every one of us for a reason. He has forgiveness within His heart and will relieve you of sin as long as you ask for forgiveness and are truly sorry. I believe a good Christian should live next to God. Treat Him as Father, as He is. Love Him, He'll love you back.

 

That's basically what I'm saying too. You do what you believe is right because you have observed it to be right, not because a mighty power say so.

It doesn't have to be out of fear. The idea is that theists (including myself) believe that the right thing is the right thing because God says so, often never stopping to think that it might be wrong.

 

A couple of 8rief points to cover here. God does punish those who diso8ey him. A cursory glance through the 8i8le would tell you this. The Plagues of Egypt are one of the 8etter known examples, 8ut there are other cases. Sodom and Gomorrah were razed to the ground for 8eing unholy. Jonah was swallowed 8ecause he didn't do God's 8idding. Hell, God scattered the nations 8ecause of the Tower of 8a8el, and killed almost every person on Earth in the gr8 flood! He's very much malevolent, or at the least, willing to punish those who diso8ey him. (And I didn't even 8ring up the cases which are usually ignored, such as stonings, dismem8erment and exile.)

As for the morality 8eing something God crafted: He must have done a very poor jo8 if that's the case. After all, all cultures have different moralities and different 8eliefs. Even in the same culture, you get pro-lifers and pro-choicers. Human morals cannot have origin8ed from one source, 8ecause they vary throughout the ages and across cultures. They're anything except universal.

 

A cursory glance at a few basic SCIENCE(!!!) points involving climate and local wildlife in that area at that time show that God simply knew that Pharaoh would be stubborn and simply told Moses to tell Pharaoh that several events (which would have happened anyway) would be sent by God to punish Egypt. It was all a perfectly orchestrated XanatosGambit on the part of both Moses and God, or just Moses assuming God doesn't exist.

The flood is also highly unlikely to have been worldwide. Imagine, for a moment, that you have never been outside a 50 kilometer radius of your home and are totally unaware of the rest of the world. If a huge flood hits your area, it would certainly seem as though the whole world has been flooded.

Other points that were set up by God as punishments to people by people were only immoral by OUR standards, not theirs.

 

I am just pointing this out. Isn't religion supposed to be based off of faith. Having a scientific explanation defeats the purpose.

 

As Douglas Adams put it: "Truth denies faith and without faith [God] is nothing."

I personally feel that this is exactly how I feel. I may not personally believe or disbelieve in a deity one way or the other, but the majority of the messages put forward by religion are perfectly founded in rational human thought. The reason I don't follow religion is because I like my own concious thought. I like to feel that I am making decisions based off of my own congicion, not the laws of an unseen God. While I may not personally be willing to put faith into something that I do not know to be correct and waste my life away in fear about what will happen to me when I die, I only wish to use my own intuition to discover for myself what I deem to be right or wrong, and not spoonfed by an archaic religious text.

 

Especially when science plainly contradicts any literal interpretation of the Bible (or at the very least of the Old Testament). For example the Bible says that Adam and Eve were instantly sent on Earth and then gave birth to all of humanity (inbreeding says hi). It also says that Earth was created in seven days. Either the Bible' s wrong or the whole thing is just a bunch of metaphors. Or, third option, silly me, the science is wrong cause God staged some false leads about our origins, the DNA mechanisms and a whole batshit insane bunch of stuff all over the freaking existence. After all it' s not funny if God doesn' t do his best at misleading everyone into NOT believing in him.

Personally I' d go with metaphors, I' m always astonished when I see that some people have no trouble believing both in science and in a literal interpretation of the Bible, it only makes me wonder what kind of science they were taught exactly.

In short, my point is that whether what' s described in the Bible actually happened or not, or contradicts science or not, is irrelevant. It' s the meaning of the story that really matters.

In the catholic point of view any kind of suffering is actually a blessing. Ignoring that fact when trying to understand the Bible can only lead to Epicurus-esque contradictions.

Spoiler

I' ve read somewhere that people studying religious texts pointed out that Hell hasn' t always been described (in Jew texts) the way it is now (and not described at all even before that): if any soul in Paradise were to see and pity a soul stucked in Hell all of its sins would be forgiven and he would instantly be allowed into Paradise. Eventually a Pope (don' t remember which one) asked for that passage to be modified. He must have thought most people wouldn' t be that reluctant to sin heavily if the prize to pay was so cheap (no kidding ^^).

It would appear that in the oldest Jew texts known there was only a Paradise and a Purgatory, I never bothered to seriously check any of this.

 

I have not been reading this thread so I apologize if this is off topic. I read the first post and to some extent, I agree with what you are saying. Many Christians do not truly understand what it is that they believe. They are just blind followers. I am a Catholic and attend a Catholic school. This past year I took a mandatory moral theology class where every week we would pick a moral issue and write an argumentative paper about it. We would then present our argument to the class and have to defend our point. The teacher actually encouraged us to try to argue against the Church, which was actually very difficult. In the end, we all came out of that class as better Catholics who actually understand our beliefs. The whole point of the class was to help us in realizing what is right and understanding why it is right. I am slightly confused by your point about why it is wrong to kill. I am a Catholic and I can see why it is wrong to kill by just thinking logically about it. It really is not that hard to figure out. Let's take capital punishment. For one thing, it does not accomplish anything. No one benefits from it. It is simply a form of revenge, which makes us no better than the criminal. Also, it is simply illogical to kill them. It is actually cheaper to put criminals in high security prisons than it is to execute. I do not remember the exact figures, but it much more expensive than most people would think to execute someone. With the security of modern prisons, at least in the US, there is no chance of escape. There is no way that they could possible harm society. In developing countries, execution makes more sense because they may not have the facilities to contain dangerous criminals. The Church's teaching on this agrees with what I was able to logically deduce. She teaches that a criminal can only be executed if there is no other way to protect society from them. I feel like I may have wandered off topic a little bit. I agree that many religious people do not actually know what they believe and simply believe it out of fear. However, I do not think that atheists necessarily know God better than any religious person. Just my $0.02.

 

Religion doesn't have to be 100% faith. For example, records show that one Iesus Nazerenus (Jesus the Nazorean) was executed by crucifixion. It's also hypothesized that the burning bush was a rare and long lived species of rose called Rubus Sanctus that produces a slow burning oil to keep from burning up in the desert heat and which has only been seen growing in the Sinai region. Interestingly enough, there is a bush of that species growing in the spot where Moses is traditionally believed to have seen the burning bush. It's unlikely to be the same bush, but it's still significant. And SCIENCE(!!!!) has also shown that pork and other similar meats spoil too quickly to be practical for the purposes of nomadic tribes with no means of keeping food cool, thus the laws of clean and unclean foods.

Faith is about believing even if there isn't proof. Just because something can be proven doesn't mean that it doesn't require faith. I have faith that my $1 bill will always be worth one dollar, don't I? For a much grander example, all of reality requires faith to believe in. Just believing that you are in a living body interacting with some kind of outside world takes a tremendous amount of faith. The only existence that you can be sure of is your own mind. Sure, we may get reactions from the outside world, but don't amputees occasionally feel sensations in their nonexistent limbs?

@Patman: I completely agree. The Bible is a collection of myths, proverbs (no pun intended), and a small bit of history. For example, I've always seen the Creation Story is a metaphor for evolution. Note that the word translated as "day" from the original Hebrew is better translated as "period of time." Note also that there are four Eons into which the life of Earth is divided, the largest and most recent further divided into three Eras. Six periods of time, right up to when humans first began roaming the earth. The seventh period of time is happening right now.

 

I just stumbled upon this :
[video=youtube;H1LzVN8nqg0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1LzVN8nqg0&feature=related[/video]
I feel like listening a much smarter version of myself. Combining what I learned in catechism, at school and from personal experience I pretty much ended up drawing the same conclusions about "God" as him. I' l let you decide whether this is a closer understanding of God than the Christian understanding or not. ^^

 

hm, interesting....

 

lol, I don't have time to read through all the posts on this discussion, and I don't know how many people have already said this, but I'm going to throw my bit in anyway. :)

Once upon a time, a man made four puppets. He loved them all equally and gave them one rule: Don't play in the fire or you could die.
The first puppet looked at him and said "I know what is right, I know what is wrong. I don't need you to tell me what to do, I can live for myself." That puppet was very successful with his life. He did what was right, he followed the law, and had a fairly happy life. But he never spoke to the man again. He didn't need him, see?
The second puppet saw the man and was scared. He knew that the man was big enough and strong enough to chop him up and use him for firewood if he didn't obey. He wished he could live like his brother the first puppet, but was scared that if he didn't, the man would get mad at him.
The third puppet saw the man and loved him. He didn't obey the rule because he was scared of the man, he obeyed the rule because he wanted to make the man happy and he knew that the man only wanted what was best for him. He talked with the man, and treated him like a father, and the man treated him like a son.
The fourth puppet saw the man and said "You can't tell me what to do. I can live however I want to." Then he promptly jumped in the fire and was badly burnt. He was sorry for what he had done and asked the man to forgive him. So the man said "I already have" and fixed him. It hurt, but the puppet felt so much better after all the charred wood had been stripped away. Before long, the fourth puppet realized that the man truly did love him like a son, and then he also realized, he had found a father in him.


The man in the story is God, and we are the puppets. The rule is the word of God, and you can be whichever puppet you want to be. The puppet that knew what way was best and didn't need a father, the puppet that is scared of God and only obeys him out of fear, all the while cheating himself out of a relationship, the puppet who has lived their whole life with God and knows him, truly knows him like a child knows their father, or the puppet that made some mistakes before and wishes to be made new. If you are the fourth puppet, or if you want to know more about God and his plan for your life, PM me and I will talk to you.

God Bless! :)

 

This. Everybody has their own beliefs, religion, etc., and it's all based off of faith. Trying to solve it with science, in my opinion, is unnecessary, pointless, and it would, as you said, defeat the purpose of having own beliefs purely off of faith.

 

Dang. :/ Responses here are really heating up this sort of topic.

In my position, I've been baptized at age of 2 and till now still a protestant (18). I follow the rules because they were decreed but also because they are morally right. I don't follow rules unless there is meaning behind it. Morality is one of the meanings for me and so therefore I do follow the rules and also my own set which help. In my religion, there is a saying in the bible that says, "On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" In what Jet.User said in the last sentence, "In short, you can only fully know God if you do not believe in him and if you do, then you will never fully know God," I actually believe that is very true. Right now I fully believe in god and walk for him. It may be impossible for me to just walk up to someone else and tell him to join your religion unless they are interested and already had thoughts of joining it. There were some instances like that happening but they were at that time mentally sick and felt something was missing in their life.

This question is quite almost like the question of 9 good men and one murderer. Would you throw them all in prison and prevent another life to be taken? Or let them free to allow another life to be taken but you spare 9 other lives? Another question like this would be to sacrifice your beloved for many or save your beloved and sacrifice many?

Aetheists know God than all others? Its possible. But if it was, why didn't he/she join the religion and help spread the good morality and religion at the same time to support each other and make it into something better? I can probably understand if he/she didn't join because they felt that they were okay so far in life, they have morality and other reasons. But it still wouldn't make sense that they wouldn't join to help the good.

Btw, Marushi in post 76 had a very good story there. I liked it. :3 Kudos. But yes imagine us as puppets in reality and god as the puppet maker.

 

lol, thanx for the props! :)

 

Well, perhaps because from that Athiest point of view, Religion is not necessarily a good thing? Now, speaking personally, I feel I understand enough about God and the system of Christianity at least to know I do not support a religious lifestyle. I feel it acts as opposition to free-thinking by giving a set of morals for it's followers to act upon as well as said morals being in some cases things I do not think is right. That's not to say I think Religion is evil, nor do most athiests, not at all, and it is everyone's right to believe what they wish to religiously, but because of my understanding of God I don't feel that I could contribute to a organization I disagree with on principal. That and to be part of a religion, wouldn't you need to believe in the deity that religion worships? By definition, an athiest cannot be a part of a religion. They can agree with it's morals and principals, but Theism has nothing to do with the morals one believes.