Posts by serotonin

73

Is it POOR PARENTING to raise a child into a religious faith?

by nicolaou in

or, by the same token, to raise a child to be atheist?

surely we should teach our children how to think, not what to think.

equip them with the mental tools they need to be able to work things out for themselves.

serotonin_wraith

Children are still people, and as long as they aren't hurting anyone, they should be able to find their own way in life and come to their own conclusions. They aren't extensions of the parents in any other way than biologically.

105

Christianity in a nutshell

by serotonin_wraith in

let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.

first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.

serotonin_wraith

Can being a Christian be as harmful as being a member of the KKK, a nazi, or a suicide bomber? Hmm, well let's consider all the 'witches' and heretics burnt over hundreds of years, how about the wars Christians are engaged in right now, how about poisoning children's minds with flawed morals and unfounded fear? Then we have people in Africa dying from AIDS, while at the same time Catholics are over there telling them condoms go against God, and stem cell research being held back by Christians, which has the potential to cure millions. Is it as harmful? No. It's worse.

What about the good Christians? Well, what about the good nazis? They didn't ALL go killing, but plenty gave the power and support to those who did. If a group of fairy believers were good, and a few bad apples started doing bad things because it was a message that COULD be got from the fairy beliefs, why not just try to get them all to see fairy belief is ridiculous anyway and cut off the problem at its head. As long as Christianity exists, there will always be those who will think God wants them to do bad things.

Personal experience- funny how people have personal experiences about whatever god is the most popular in the society they were raised in. All the gods in the world must be real if 'personal experience' is supposed to be convincing.

darkuncle29: "I believe that a person could have those thoughts and beliefs, as long as they do not act upon them and try to inflict their view or behavors upon other people, that is crossing a line."

Yeah, that's well put. If they didn't bring up their children in their religion or try converting others I'd be much more tolerant. But of course if that happened, Christianity would die out.

"For athiests who just want to be left alone, being bothered and harassed by Religious nuts can be taxing, but they need to realize, that is not all of that group, just the active and crazies."

For me personally, it goes deeper than being harrassed by the religious. I never get preached to. It's more the bad effects of religion that gets me talking.

"My beliefs regarding my experiences and interpretations of reality are mine, not for sale, open for discusion but not by people who have locked in their own belief (or "negative" beliefs) and are seeking forced consensus."

I'm with you on the forced part- I don't think anyone should be forced to change their beliefs.

lovelylil:

May I suggest that if you want a real breakdown of core Christian beliefs that you go to the website of a Bible Scholar or Church leader and not the website of an athiest?
I won't go into it at this time but basically Dawkins is incorrect on all his assumptions made that you posted. He cleary does not understand Christianity at all.

So which parts are incorrect? (Dawkins didn't write the article).

BA:

Atheism in a nutshell:
There is no plausible explanation for how life came to be of its own accord, no plausible explanation for the design and order that is inherent in the universe, in animals, plants, and other life forms. For whatever reason, there is only one planet, Earth,that has been proven to have life on it. This life supposedly just spontaneously appeared from nothing (just like the universe, lol) and a simple one celled creature spontaneously generated from non-life, and then mutated into a higher order multi-celled creature, lols, and this process continued through some imaginary series of events to produce the plethora of life forms observed on Earth today, lulz! Although there exists no proof that one life form has ever become another, the wacky imaginations of insane people imagine that one life form actually morphed into another, lulz!! Here’s the best part- these idiots claim that they don’t need faith to believe this hogwash! They may as well believe in pink unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster! It’s all about putting faith in some imaginary explanation of how things came to be and the way things are! Bonus points for this wacked out belief system because it claims to be "new light" as to how things came to be (only being explained in the last hundred years or so), in direct opposition to beliefs held by humanity for thousands of years, beliefs that are way more plausible!

Huh? Your lack of scientific knowledge aside, that's not atheism. Atheism is not believing in a god. That's it.

You've made your beliefs sound fancy, that's all. What is basically boils down to is what was in the first post.

Understands that we all put faith in something.

Nope.

---Is this actually trolling? Why not have debates about religion? We debate lots of things on this board. If this subject offends you, don't involve yourself. If you've had enough of it, don't involve yourself. But if you CHOOSE to read it, that's up to you. It's nothing to do with me.---

105

Christianity in a nutshell

by serotonin_wraith in

let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.

first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.

serotonin_wraith

its' simplistic tone leaves out the real 'power' behind the reason a person follows the example of One born 2,000 years ago.

I thought they covered that bit.

"He gets himself crucified, in order that he can sacrifice himself to himself for our good."

"...

to wait for the time when he will return to raise every human who has ever lived in bodily form for judgement, then cast most of us into a pit of fire and take a select few into his 'kingdom' for eternity where they will live happily ever after."

You can dress it up and make it look fancy with words such as 'power' but that's the basic belief, and that's all I (or rather the article) was pointing out.

105

Christianity in a nutshell

by serotonin_wraith in

let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.

first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.

serotonin_wraith

So which parts of that do you not believe, Double Edge? Help me out here.

105

Christianity in a nutshell

by serotonin_wraith in

let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.

first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.

serotonin_wraith

It wasn't from Dawkins, just on his site.

I'm not a christian but I still respect those who are.

Same here. I just don't respect the beliefs.

Would you get irritated with a christian who found what you believe laughable?

If I gave evidence to support what I believed, sure.

if being christian gives someone joy and happiness and fufillment, who is anyone to judge them for that?

Now change the word Christian for some other group.

"if being a member of the KKK gives someone joy and happiness and fufillment, who is anyone to judge them for that?"

"if being a nazi gives someone joy and happiness and fufillment, who is anyone to judge them for that?"

"if being a suicide bomber gives someone joy and happiness and fufillment, who is anyone to judge them for that?"

It's a different story then.

105

Christianity in a nutshell

by serotonin_wraith in

let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.. section taken from: .

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,are-the-new-atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,edmund-standing-butterfliesandwheelscom.

first, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:.

serotonin_wraith

Let's see exactly what people are holding so firmly to, while all the time believing they aren't actually deluded.

Section taken from:

http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,1816,Are-the-New-Atheists-avoiding-the-real-arguments,Edmund-Standing-ButterfliesAndWheelscom

First, let's take a quick look at the basic biblical narrative:

There is an indescribably powerful and intelligent being called God who is in existence prior to the dawn of time. For whatever reason, he decides to create the universe and pays particular attention to planet Earth. Having created the universe, Earth and all the species on it (through 'creating' the Big Bang and 'guiding' evolution in the Williams style of interpretation), he decides to focus all his attention on a collection of tribal groupings in the Middle East, in particular the Israelites who are his 'chosen people' and who he obsesses over, while apparently ignoring the rest of the world's population. He lays down numerous often primitive and arbitrary moral and ceremonial laws, then gets involved in inner tribal politics and land disputes, inciting acts of brutality, war crimes, genocide, and rape along the way. Fast forward to the Middle East under Roman occupation and God decides it's time to put in an appearance. By mystical means he comes to earth in human form, being born of a virgin. He becomes incarnate as a Jewish male and wanders around what is today Israel-Palestine, imparting pithy social commentary (but never giving any systematic explanation of how such ideas might be made politically useful), engaging in faith healing (removing 'demons' from people), magic tricks (such as walking on water and raising a dead man), and ranting on and on about sin, eternal punishment for the majority of the world's population, and the impending end of the world. He gets himself crucified, in order that he can sacrifice himself to himself for our good. A few days later he walks out of his tomb and wanders round with some of his followers (noticeably not bothering to make himself known to anyone but those who already believed in him), before 'ascending' into 'Heaven', to wait for the time when he will return to raise every human who has ever lived in bodily form for judgement, then cast most of us into a pit of fire and take a select few into his 'kingdom' for eternity where they will live happily ever after.

These are the basic building blocks upon which all Christian theology is constructed. Williams and others can protest that of course they don't really see things in such a simplistic and manifestly implausible way, but this narrative underpins the Bible, the Church creeds, liturgies, and centuries of theological speculation.

It doesn't look so impressive when you break it down. But there it is, that's what Christians believe. And quite a few of them don't even believe in evolution or the big bang! Shall we all respect these beliefs? Nah, I don't think so. If you think we should, you should look over what they actually believe again until you can no longer read it with a straight face.

76

Staying a Christian Upon Leaving (cont.)

by serotonin_wraith in

writetoknow, you can paste in those articles again if you like.

could you just put in the first two for now (the one with the sunset on the right side, and the one about the author's atheist friend?

no one is making anyone read this.

serotonin_wraith

So what do I, and all other atheists believe?

39

Is there a God? The musings of madman as he walks through the woods

by dawg in

jw
friends

bear with me, i promice you'll be happy you read this, .

here at uga, i studied in the micro-biology department for the first three years of college-organic chem 3 pretty much ended my career.

i think evolution is pretty sound sans the fact that they haven't answered the question of how life began.

serotonin_wraith

We just don't have the technical know how to do it yet, that's all. Cavemen couldn't build aeroplanes, the Romans couldn't go to the moon and the Victorians couldn't communicate with people around the world instantly. So there will be things that we can't do yet. Creating life is one of them, just like going to Mars is one of them (though I think we're closer to going to Mars than creating life).

As for life appearing being easy- hmm, not really. Whatever is involved, it has to be a rare event because we don't know of any other planets yet that support life. Out of all the billions of worlds, this may be the only one with life. We don't know yet. All we do know is that in all our searching we've found nothing out there yet. It would appear the conditions have to be just right first. While people may say that points to a god being involved, we should remember the vast amount of planets in the universe. If there was only a one in a billion chance of life appearing on a planet, there would still be a billion planets supporting life.

39

Is there a God? The musings of madman as he walks through the woods

by dawg in

jw
friends

bear with me, i promice you'll be happy you read this, .

here at uga, i studied in the micro-biology department for the first three years of college-organic chem 3 pretty much ended my career.

i think evolution is pretty sound sans the fact that they haven't answered the question of how life began.

serotonin_wraith

Evolution is how living things change over time. It is a fact that this happens.

How life started is abiogenesis, which is still a grey area.

One follows the other, but they are not the same thing. Rather like a person firing a starting pistol (abiogenesis) and then a race beginning (evolution). The pistol firing isn't the race itself, it just precedes it.

39

Is there a God? The musings of madman as he walks through the woods

by dawg in

jw
friends

bear with me, i promice you'll be happy you read this, .

here at uga, i studied in the micro-biology department for the first three years of college-organic chem 3 pretty much ended my career.

i think evolution is pretty sound sans the fact that they haven't answered the question of how life began.

serotonin_wraith

I think my question would have to be - why do you want there to be a god?

I feel happier knowing there's no reason to believe in one. If bad things happen I can see that at least it's random, and not an all powerful being slacking off for whatever reason.

If there is a god, there's a 1 in 3000 chance of picking the right one, not to mention finding the right way to worship it. So most of us should expect some kind of punishment after death. If there's no afterlife, and we just cease to exist, that's fine. We were doing that for billions of years before we were born and we never had a problem with it.

The purpose of life becomes whatever you want. I'd much rather do what I want to do than follow rules I find immoral. A life without serving a god doesn't lead to immoral behaviour- relying on your own judgement can in fact make you a better person.

We haven't created life yet (apart from procreation or in test tubes), but we also haven't set foot on Mars. Should we believe we will never be able to set foot on Mars? Not really, it's just something we may have to wait for. Future generations may have that privilege. It's no reason to think it's an impossibility.

If you need advice about what career move to make, you can speak to those who have tried what you're considering and see if they can help. You can look at the good and bad points involved. Research is the key, and it can help you find an answer. If things don't work out, no harm done. You just try something else. Whatever you feel like doing should be credited to your own mind, not a god putting ideas in your head.

I find living for now much better than living for a future life nobody knows exists. This life is the important one. This may be the only one we get, so we shouldn't be wasting it.

serotonin_wraith

Posts by serotonin_wraith