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A Message to the Doom-and-Gloom Christian Fundies......
All you guys who have been saying "The end is near" and "the world is falling apart"....ad nauseum. And blah, blah, blah.
Guess what? I got some news for ya. You're Wrong! LOL. Gee, what a surprise: a Christians zealot and misanthrope being wrong! Like it doesn't happen every single time they forecast an Apocalypse or whatnot.
Yep....contrary to popular belief the world is more peaceful and better off Now than EVER!
You're welcome. (As I think that science and logic and atheistic reasoning are to thank for this, we have made the world better, despite the hindrance of Christianity and Islam.
I get everything right when it comes to Science or history. And especially evolution. Check my posts, which are usually backed with links and sources.
If you find anything you think is wrong, bring it to my attention so I can explain it better to you, or elaborate. I am here to teach. And to help. Thanks!
Oh...also regarding the evils of religion and the history of the bible. Anything theological, I am also pretty much beyond refute. See my post below about how I prove their bible CANNOT be written by god. But rather by flawed and agenda-driven Bronze Age Hebrews!
I get everything right when it comes to Science or history.
Even people with PhDs who have dedicated themselves to these fields do not get everything right, so I very much doubt that you do. There is also nothing beyond refute. You may do more research than the average person, but that hardly makes you infallible.
When I said I got everything right, I meant insofar as my posts here on CD.Which I usually provide links with.
One of the great things about Science is that most of us admit that we don't have all the answers. Yet. So the fun is in searching for them. And once in awhile finding them.
No, not agreed. My observations hold even if you do just mean your posts here on CD. If you go into every engagement on this forum thinking you already know the answers you are failing to acknowledge your own fallibility.
Yeah, speaking of the bible, you have now, for about four days and several requests from me, conveniently avoided answering me this Question:
If the bible is the inerrant word of god as you claim and not just a man-made collection of Hebrew Mythos and allegory as I say, then why does it contain so damn many errors and inconsistencies? As well as downright evil and loathsome tales?
I pretty much agree with you, however, it does little good to ridicule someone's religion. Better to try to point out the inconsistencies and myths (and evils) without just firing up more determination on their part. It's hard, I know. I sometimes "lose it" with some of these charlatans too. Just sayin'.
You have nothing to speak about. All you are speaking about is your own anger toward God. Whatever happened to you, whatever it was that made you such a nasty person toward God, full of hatred toward Him and His people.....God still loves you, always did, always will...even if you can never know His love in Hell.
All you have to speak about can be summarized as your insistence that God does not have the right to rule over or against you nor leave you dying in Hell forever.
I'm really not interested in your never ending arguments against God.
You are dying, lost, you need to be saved now. You can be saved now. You can now know your sins are forgiven and you are going to be in Heaven forever the moment your time here is finalized. Whatever made you mad at God, you have to get over it and realize you need God's mercy and stop letting your bitterness keep you in the dark screaming that you have the right to exist outside of Hell.
So you are angry at God because you feel like He is not helping you and others enough. Boo hoo for you. We all deserve to die and burn in Hell, but you feel like God is supposed to help you more so you feel better as you die. Boo hoo.
I did plod through one of your posts....most of them I ignore, but I am responding to you for that one here.
I keep my exploits and accomplishments as well as my current activities quiet because this is not about me. It's all about the One who Created us and loves us so much that He took our place in death to save us, by His resurrection and power, from Hell.
Grammar is tedious to me because I don't like the limitations on the style of my expression. In schools, I plodded through to compose grammatically correct papers but I hated the self-editing then as much as I dislike it now. I really don't care if people give bad comments about my writing style because I know that when they are doing that, it is only because their arguments are weak and they are trying to make themselves feel better by nitpicking belittling of what is really nothing but a personality trait, a personal preference of mine in writing style. You might guess that run-on sentences has always been my greatest weakness and downfall in spending a lot of time separating sentences and using the right punctuation in the right places. I prefer to write more in tune with the way I think and speak. You know what I'm saying, and you know what I mean when I say it, and that's good enough. Your education has been extremely one-sided and full of disinformation, and you misunderstand my education and underestimate things you really know nothing about. I minimize focusing on myself because I am only a vessel for God's service.
If I could be convinced that you could act like a gentleman, I would offer to meet you in person and you would quickly drop any idea of talking tough trash. Then I would show you all of my credentials and if you really had any military experience as you claim, you would show more respect for me. In all of my door to door neighborhood outreach activities, I have never met a veteran who acted disrespectful as you do even when they have plainly stated their beliefs which often are similar to yours.
Tell your ignoramous girlfriend that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in Hell nor in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ nor in His bodily return. There are two things unique in knowing God through Jesus Christ. First, He is who He said, God incarnate. Because He is God, death could not hold Him in the ground. Second, Death is eternal punishment of sinners as they are separated from God by there sins. You are dying in the first death now, and in the second death (assuming you will decline God's offer of pardon by paying for your sins Himself with His own blood) you will be dying forever in an environment void of any indications of God's goodness....and that is a place of fire, consuming and confining sin forever to keep it from affecting God's creation any further......the means of banishing sin forever and forever preventing it from ever damaging anything or anybody living by God's grace.
You are trying to avoid Judgement by denying God, and you're failing to secure that denial. You may be fooling yourself, but you won't be fooling yourself for long. I hope you get saved before it's too late, and I hope your girlfriend also gets saved.
I don't know...once again I think I'm wasting my time with you. The things I am telling you are things I heard about but never really believed until I was a young adult. Now I know it's true, Jesus is God and He is alive and He's coming back. I was a lot like you, but I never thought Jesus was a liar....I did believe for a while that he was some kind of super-spiritual person on the verge of total lunacy so strong that miracles appeared to be happening with Him, but it had to be lunacy combined with mass hypnosis due to His strong confidence in His moral teachings. I always was open to the idea that He was God as He said, and that He really did rise from the grave but I was not sure how I could really believe it. When I finally knew I was a sinner and He was the Savior, I decided I didn't want Him because I knew He would change my life and I would have to stop enjoying the sinning I enjoyed so much.
Now He has changed my life, given me a new life, He is my life, I am His property, and that is the definition of a saint...God's property, a person set apart by God for Himself, He bought me with His own life's blood so I am forgiven, justified to live by Him in His resurrection, I have eternal life and I can't contain myself but to try to get others who do not know what I know and do not have what I have to know God and have eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Jesus promised to give life, and life more abundantly....freedom...it's way better than the pleasures of sin..knowing where I am going and who I'm going to see when I get there, knowing I'm going to be like Jesus with a new body which will never again know the corruption of sin and death.
Son, it's not me who is lacking in education. You've closed your mind to the Truth and are packing your pockets full of lies. Your trying to blow up your brain and it's going to burn with you in Hell if you don't repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not saying this because I dislike you or desire evil on you. I want the best for you. God wants the best for you. It's only you who is preventing Him.
I'll be taking a break from you for a while. God has to get through to you, you have to be open to Him or I'll just be wasting time.
Maybe others will read this and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is problems in the world, but it doesn't mean ALL will fail and collapse! "So if there is global warming, does it mean life is gonna warm up the earth so much that we will be sun miniture?" is what some idiots will say about problems on earth. There may be some bad things that go and gone, but nothing stays permanent and never goes away on earth! Global warming isn't going to last forever, yet it's lasting for a very long time! Also the resources of the earth; stop using something over and over and just use a new type of resource that is always right in front of you when you get something under earth: STONE.
OP's counterargument only holds true if the doom-and-gloom camp advances their claims on the basis of escalating violence and conflict. Not all of them do. At least some are more focused upon purity harms (virtue, morality, etc.) than actual harms (war, violence, etc.).
I am warming to you, Jace. You are proving to be one of the best 2-3 debaters and commentators here.
I knew myself when I posted the links describing how global conflict is at a historic low right now that a Christian fundie doom-and-gloomer could denigrate that argument, and launch into a spiel about the declining morals; people leaving the church; runaway technology; hell, even the crazy often-apocalyptic-seeming weather. And use THOSE and other observations as evidence the End IS NIGH! LOL.
But nobody did. I was sort of disappointed in this. And it just shows to go ya how my earlier post bemoaning the lack of good fundie competition here on CB. Me and you both could have minimized my "Peaceful World" argument and cited doom-spelling trouble elsewhere in the world, in an attempt to support the idea that the End Times are a-comin'.
What a shock. Just like I said, bigots on this site constantly insulting Christians while hardly ever creating derogatory insulting debates against Muslims, and Muslims are killing us! Why is that?
It is actually because no one really defends Muslims on this site and they end up being really boring, so no one creates any. Supply and Demand. It is Capitalism in motion.
When I debate, I don't create a debate just to get reactions. I'm trying to bring about awareness to important issues that effect our nation. Do you create debates to just get reactions? Those are called trolls who say flambouyant things to get a response or get points.
It's amazing that the many bigots on this site who constantly ridicule Christians, refuse to ridicule Muslims who many support killing innocent people.
Yes, of course. It isn't a debate unless there are interactions. If no one reacts you haven't created a debate, you created a blog.
Those are called trolls who say flambouyant things to get a response or get points.
Not in every context. Getting people to react to what you say does not make you a troll unless you are trying to get them to respond to you in a negative way. Sometimes it means you are trying to have a conversation.
It's amazing that the many bigots on this site who constantly ridicule Christians, refuse to ridicule Muslims who many support killing innocent people.
There are very few of those people on here. You ignore all the content where we make fun of Muslims. Look at all of your proof. Your only way to prove if someone ridicules Muslims is if they created a debate. There have been over 590 thousand arguments written and only 69 thousand debates. There are a bunch of arguments that ridicule Islam.
I certainly hope the next sentence will explain how you understood what I was saying.
I ASKED FOR PEOPLE TO SHOW ME THE DEBATE TITLE THAT RIDICULED MUSLIMS.
Perfect. You didn't understand what I said. I told you that you only cared about the debates and completely ignored arguments that people make that go against Islam.
THERE WAS NOT ONE!
My original response to you involved a debate attacking Islam, so you are a liar ... again.
It's so obvious why I ban you. It's such an easy request. Just one debate title where they ridicule and insult Muslims. Nothing, yet you still refuse to admit the truth in what I say. Don't waste your time replying because I'm done with your lies.
Do you even recognize that you change the parameters of your requests when people provide you with proof? Or is this somehow something you aren't consciously aware of?
When I debate, I don't create a debate just to get reactions.
Except you don't debate. You state your opinions and yell at people who disagree.
I'm trying to bring about awareness to important issues that effect our nation.
If that was true, you wouldn't intentionally avoid talking to people who disagree with you.
It's amazing that the many bigots on this site who constantly ridicule Christians, refuse to ridicule Muslims who many support killing innocent people.
What's amazing is that there isn't a single person like that here, yet you have managed to convince yourself the site is full of this imaginary type of person.
I always laugh when a bigoted Atheist(who never dares to ridicule Muslims) tells us how our nation is doing better without the moral values derived from our nation's Christian's heritge.
To ANY thinking person, LOOK AROUND! Have you noticed the highest % of broken families of all time? Have you noticed the radical abortion mentality where we now even sell organs from late term Babies after killing them. We now support allowing Babies born alive from botched abortions to die. This is the Godless world's sense of moral values and compassion!
Our welfare roles are swollen, the number of Americans living in poverty is at record highs, our childrens grades are falling to the world, our nation is 18 trillion in debt, we now have terrorists killing us in our own nation, our boarders are over run by illegal immigrants, our economy has been dead(unless you work in low paying dead end jobs) for 7 years, etc. etc. and this hideous bigot thinks we are doing better? WOW!
It's quite amazing listening to a narcisist. They are so psycologically blind to how they sound to sane people, they actually believe the rantings coming from their mouth. They actually think they are the enlightened intelligent ones. It's sad.
Any person who must constantly ridicule groups of people who make him feel insecure about himself, is dsyfunctional. He lives in his own dream world of intellectual superiority.
Every single time you make these claims, people respond to you with statistics on violence, poverty, disease, and countless other factors that prove our nation is doing better. And not once do you ever have a legitimate response.
I always laugh when a bigoted Atheist(who never dares to ridicule Muslims)
What about the Atheists who do make fun of Muslims that you never acknowledge?
tells us how our nation is doing better without the moral values derived from our nation's Christian's heritge.
You laugh at statistics?
To ANY thinking person, LOOK AROUND!
Your favorite: the common sense fallacy.
Have you noticed the radical abortion mentality where we now even sell organs from late term Babies after killing them.
It's called stem cell research and it will help cure people.
we now have terrorists killing us in our own nation
This is new?
our economy has been dead(unless you work in low paying dead end jobs) for 7 years
The economy has been dead since it recovered from the recession?
It's quite amazing listening to a narcisist. They are so psycologically blind to how they sound to sane people, they actually believe the rantings coming from their mouth. They actually think they are the enlightened intelligent ones. It's sad.
And, your second favorite tool: projection.
Any person who must constantly ridicule groups of people who make him feel insecure about himself, is dsyfunctional.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
He lives in his own dream world of intellectual superiority.
Thank you. But no, I am most definitely not a Christian.
I was raised Catholic, though. Parochial school till 6th grade. I am a Recovering Catholic. LOL.
I am glad to be free of organized religion, especially the RCC. Judging by your points (14) it looks like you are pretty new around here? Well, you will soon find I am probably one of the more outspoken Atheists on CD.
But I do think Jesus of Nazareth had some damn fine teachings. Too bad how badly his original message and Christianity as a whole has been perverted and corrupted.
Yes, I am new and still finding my way around the site.
I am also atheist but I am also Hindu. I am atheist because I don't believe in God like most Western religions do. I see God in the way it is described in the Hindu books, and want to ask if you agree with my definition.
I think God is an intangible "thing" in everything, living and non-living. If you look at it scientifically, there most likely is a most basic "pixel" of matter; a subatomic particle that is the smallest building block. Since this is the most basic block of everything the universe is created out of, it must be uniform and not be diverse. The diversity of the things in the universe result from the different ways these blocks interact/combine with each other.
I believe that God is this infinitely small block. And since it makes up everything, isn't it most likely omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent? It isn't sentient but it has to react to things, it controls everything because everything is made up of it, and it is present literally everywhere in the universe.
We are all made of one thing, and that makes us all God. What do you think?
I am curious why you feel the need to describe a scientific phenomenon as "god" at all? It seems like a desperate attempt to keep the idea alive, without any real reason for doing so.
For instance, I see no reason to say that we are all God because we share a common origin. Why not simply leave it at the observation that we share a common origin?
Also, God is just a word in the English language. In Hindi, we say Bhraman (not to be confused with Brahman or Brahmin), which doesn't translate into anything. The closest word that comes to it is God, because God is Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent just like Bhraman. By the way, this idea existed a couple thousand years before anyone in the West new about the universe. Ancient Indians knew that there was an infinite world beyond ours, so we called it Bhraman.
I see no reason to say that we are all God because we share a common origin. Why not simply leave it at the observation that we share a common origin?
That is a very good point, but that is what we leave it at. We don't say we are all God, we say we are all Bhraman. You can't argue that we are all part of the Infinite universe, so you can't argue that we aren't all part of Bhraman.
I am familiar with other deistic and theistic beliefs. I used the term "God" only because you did. My argument is identical: why call a natural phenomenon any of these things rather than just describing it as the phenomenon it is?
You still have presented no rationale as to why being of common origin or existing simultaneously is any reason to conclude that we are all part of Bhraman (or whatever you want to call it). Continuing to reassert the claim does not make it any less unfounded.
If simply re-asserting a theistic belief time and again, ad nauseum, while offering no additional proof or even spurious evidence made for an effective debate tactic, and was in any way persuasive, then guys like Saint Nowhere would by great Christian Apologists.
And as you and I both know, all too well, he is not. I have not run into one here on CB, in fact. And, I must say that I myself could do better than they in defending the existence of god; defending JC's physical resurrection, and explaining the bible's contradictions and "evil" passages. I have done it before, playing Devil's Advocate (ironic term, given this topic!) in Theological debates.
My preceding comment applies just as equally to your belief that a greater metaphyisical phenomenon might exist which we could call "god". In fact, that was the very idea I was repudiating here.
Bhraman/ god is not just a name; it is an idea with a lengthy history of naive, delusional sentiment from which it cannot be completely divorced. Associating it with the potential phenomenon in question is not only entirely unnecessary, but could seriously restrict our ability to think of the phenomenon rationally as an objective thing.
Any association with any deistic entities, conceptions of spirit or soul, notions of purity or refined character, aspiration towards ideals, ideals themselves, etc. renders a concept such as Bhraman/god irrevocably associated with delusion and naivety. My understanding is that Bhraman does have such associations, even if those associations are not so constant as they might be with western notions of God.
Yeah...the idea that god is in everything. Sort of like Panentheism. I like how oyu call god "it" and not "Him" and don't give God all those silly human emotions like the Yahweh from the Torah. That is called anthropomorphizing and it makes god too petty and small.
Too bad the Christians don't understand this. Then again, they understand very little insofar as how the Universe really works.
So your god "In Everything" might tie in a little to my Deistic sort of Creative Intelligence. That I am sometimes agnostic toward, and believe might have a chance of existing. The Taoists' "The One" is sort of like this, as well. The "One thousand things that are the One."
Well, I am not sure I can buy into Hinduism too much, to be honest. I don't believe in reincarnation, for example. If anything we humans ascend to another Level in the Cosmos. Probably one not of physical properties, but of the Universal Mind. The Infinite Mind. Maybe. This is as far as I can go with any sort of possible afterlife. After all, I AM a science guy.
Ninety percent of my peers and colleagues are flat-out Atheists. Or believe along the lines I do. But ALL of them deny any sort of personal god.
As most educated folks do. It is no accident that the surveys have ALWAYS shown that the more education one has, the less likely it is for he or she to be a Theist.
Spoken as if you were not new yourself. You are also not the most outspoken atheist on this forum, though you are probably its most prolific at the moment.
To be outspoken means only to be direct, open, and without reserve. In that regard you are not the most outspoken atheist; for instance, I am at least as direct, open, and unreserved in my atheism as you are. I just do not write about it as much as you do, which is not the same thing as being outspoken.
Actually, now that I think about it, you have repeatedly qualified your atheism with observations that some deistic scientific phenomenon might exist which could be called god. Which means you are more reserved in your atheism than I am.
I am not confused by the terminology at all. You would know that if you attentively read my other arguments with you on the subject. You are playing at semantics, but whatever you want to call the ideas the ideas are fundamentally the same.
By your own explanation, the only actual difference between a deist and a theist is that the deist will not call their imaginary great other entity "god". It is apologetic theism that calls itself by another name as if doing so changed the substance of its claims. It does not. And being an agnostic deist is being an agnostic apologetic theist, and therefore your atheism is soft and quasi-apologetic by transitive association.
Wow...I thought you were a pretty savvy dude on matters metaphysical and Theological, but I cannot for the life of my believe you cannot understand my explanation of the difference between a Theist god and a Deist entity.
Buuut.... since I already did the best I could to explain to you how I feel and what I believe and do not believe, as far as gods are concerned, I am not sure I can do anything more for you here, on this topic. So I'm gonna go ahead and make this my last post on the matter.
So please feel free to Call me whatever you wish: Atheist; Theist; Agnostic; Deist. I really don't care too much. I know my beliefs and my ideas. They're only my personal opinions anyway.
Dismissing my conceptual grasp of metaphysics and theology without actually bothering to repudiate my analysis fails to demonstrate my lack of understanding. It does, however, demonstrate your probable ineptitude on the subjects and it certainly speaks to your inability to defend the views you expressed.
I know you are just sharing your personal opinions. The only reason I refuted them was because you posted them on a debate forum. If you did not want them challenged you should have refrained from expressing them here.
Think of it this way: Theism is a father who helps raise his children and constantly wants to be a part of their lives. Deism is a father who walked out on their child's pregnant mother.
Asserting your unverifiable credentials is not a legitimate substitute for actually making an argument. It is fine if you cannot defend your statements, but you are deluded if you think failure to do so somehow proves your point.
I DID "repudiate your analysis" (why do I feel like I am back in my undergrad Rhetoric 101 class when I read your posts?) LOL.
When I explained to you how you are misinterpreting what it means to be an Agnostic regarding a DEIST entity. An how lending the notion of that type of a Creator Force a bit of possibility in no way denigrates or even diminishes my claim to be a staunch and unwavering ATHEIST. That is....again sighthat I give NO possibility to the existence of a THEIST, personal, biblical god. Or entity.
But when I explain this too you---thrice now--you write it off as me playing with semantics or word fencing.
Which, when ya think about it, is a funny accusation coming from a guy who flaunts his vocabulary as you do.
So sure, if you want to challenge my beliefs and how I interpret the meaning of a Deist, a Theist, and an Atheist, that's fine. I am not dismissing that, or your grasp of metaphysics--which is sort of like assholes, BTW, as everybody has one. And most opinions on that topic are, alas, and also sadly, equally valid. Since it is in no way a hard science like my personal field of specialty. Arguing metaphysics is about as difficult as arguing music or movies! LOL. No one, objective, irrefutable answer; and all opines are for the most part crated equal.
This is one of the huge problems I have with religious zealots. Like a couple around here. In view of their being biblical literalists, I believe they are most likely very unstable individuals, mentally speaking. With some huge glitch in their mental cognitive abilities. They are too, likely under-educated. Yet, it is impossible to disprove their silly gods. So in matters of rhetoric and debate paradigms, there stances can be seen by many to be as valid as that of us Atheists. Even though the burden of proof is squarely and heavily on their shoulders, they refuse to answer this challenge, instead either running back to their bible for veracity--which is circular thinking, or smugly challenging us to DISprove their imaginary friend.
Exasperating, man!
So, to me, at the end of the day, discussing Metaphysics and Theology is little moire than entertainment. Not to be confused with using the empirical method and following set structure as we do in Science.
Thanks. Hope this helps clear up my ideas on all this for you.
You just reiterated the same points my analysis repudiated in defense of those points. That is begging the question, not repudiating my analysis. I have already explained why deism is an iteration of theism by another name, and simply repeating the semantic taxonomy of the words is non-response to that explanation. I am not "writing it off"; it literally has no relevance to the point I am making which pertains to the substantive similarities between deism and theism rather than their technical significance.
You also did dismiss my grasp of metaphysics, and claiming otherwise now is both dishonest and unnecessary. The subjectivity of metaphysics does not render all opinions equal with respect to their logical integrity, and so making that observation is neither an argument against my analysis nor in favor of your own.
I maintain my preceding observations regarding the softening effect of your agnostic deism upon your atheism, per my preceding rationale which you have yet to actually engage.
P.S. As an epistemological nihilist, I would also contest your assertion that "Science" is necessarily objective or empirical as we can know nothing with certainty and all conclusions are a consequence of our subjective perceptions. Nor is it necessarily true that either objectivity or empiricism have any greater value than any other alternative.
I am not confused. I understand the definitions. I used them in my own counter-rationale, where I also thoroughly explained why my point follows from those definitions. You have consistently failed to address that rationale, instead relying upon the irrelevant reassertion of definitions to which I have already agreed and integrated into my argument.
