switchFooTexas
09-05-2008, 10:04 PM
I don't wish to offend Chrisitians, I have many friends that are religious. This is just my point of view. I am hoping to have some conversation about the constant battle between Believers and Non Believers. Also, please do not take this as me trying to push this on you, i think everyone is aloud to have their own thoughts and opinions. I'm sure some will judge because of mine, but that is your decision.
So to talk about Christianity you need to know about it.
Christianity as a whole is a monotheistic religion centered around the life of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus was born the Holy Church was the governing body of religious actions. The penalty of sin would be death or most likely death of the soul. When Jesus wasn't ranting and becoming known as a savior yet, the Catholic church told people they could buy and then sacrifice pigeons instead of themselves and go to Heaven. When Jesus saw that the Church was becoming rich, he was outraged. To be frank, Jesus gained the support of many followers and sacrificed himself so that humans could go to Heaven if they believed in Jesus. I'm pretty sure i got most of that right, but i'm sorry if i didn't, and would love some correction on it.
Now, onto some things about Creationism
America has the largest population of people that actually believe in Creationism because in most other countries it is deemed nonsense. Creationists still to this day fight that grades K-12 should learn Creationism because it is a "valid" point. There is still a complete consensus (95% or 19 to 1) among scientists all over America and the rest of the world -that evolution is the backbone of modern biology, and a demonstrable reality historically as well. The truth is most people don't understand Science. They don't understand how science works, or the process such as: Purpose, Hypothesis, Materials, Procedure, Observation, Conclusion. America looked at as a whole is ignorant. 20% of Americans can't find America on a map. So I guess you can't blame them for not knowing the basic definition and steps of elementary science.
To believe in creationism, you don’t have to know anything about anything, and its better if you don’t! Because creationism relies on ignorance. It is not honest research! It is a scam, a con job exploiting the common folk, and preying on their deepest beliefs and fears. Creationist apologetics depends on misrepresented data and misquoted authorities, out-of-date and out-of-context, and uses distorted definitions if it uses definitions at all.
There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep
Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or milking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned.
The truth is I can't get any of my intelligentChristian friends to watch any Evangelical shows on TV. Maybe because they know how phony these people really are, or don't want to find out.
Creationism extorts support through peer-pressure, prejudice, and paranoid propaganda, and sells itself with short, simplistic slogans which appeal to those who don’t want to think too much, or are afraid to question their own beliefs. Worst of all, it actually forbids critical inquiry, and promotes anti-intellectualism, and it is based on at least a dozen foundational falsehoods.
Most creationists like you to believe that you have to believe in Creationism or you are not a true Christian and in fact an Atheist.
Quite the contrary actually many scientists renaissance and modern are in fact devout Christians.
One of the earliest geneticists, Theodosius Dobzhansky was an Orthodox Christian who many times professed his belief that life was created by God, but that nothing in biology made sense except in light of evolution.
Another outspoken proponent of evolution, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, (who has PhDs from both Harvard and Yale) is not only one of the leading, and most recognizable paleontologists in the world today, but he also happens to be a Bible-believing Pentecostal preacher.
Dr. Ken Miller, (who testified against intelligent design creationism in Kitzmiller v. Dover) -is a Catholic.
All these men agree that even if there really is a god, and even if that god is the Christian god, and even if that god created the universe and everything in it, =which they all believe- evolution would still be at least mostly true, and creationism would still be completely wrong. They all basically belive, that, "Yeah there is a God in my thoughts" but in some way evolution still takes control over creationism or God made evoltuion occur to better the world in some way.
I also believe that the Bible contradicts itself.
I also believe the Bible contradicts itself.
"Thou Shall not Kill" is one of the Ten Commandments supposedly written by Moses himself. Even though God told Moses to say this, according to his apostles who wrote the bible, killing anyone that worked on Sabbath Day is fine, killing "whores" is fine and killing dis-obedient teenagers is okey-dokey. It just makes no sense to me, along with a couple other things that i do not have the patience to get into right now.
My final piece of the puzzle to break my once closeness to the Creationism beliefs is this whole idea of praying.
In mymind the prayer is broken down into 3 different answers to the prayer. God can say No, Yes, or Wait. Just think about how those 3 responses can make any one believe their words at night are being heard. This prayer trick as Yes, No or Wait is easily broken down.
Lets say a friend asks you to prayer to a stuffed animal of Barney.
You are reluctant but your friend continues to pester so you give in.
You pray for 1000 dollars, not actually believing it is going to happen.
This can turn out 3 Ways.
1. You can get an IRS return check in the mail tomorrowl, and your friend could say "See Barney said Yes to your prayer and he granted it!"
2. This same event could happen in one week instead of a day later and you would get the same response.
3. You wait 6 months and nothing happens. Your friend could say something like "Barney told you to Wait. You must be patient, Barney must remain mysterious."
Either way you know it's nonsense to believe that a non-animate stuffed animal granted your prayer and you would classify the event as coincidence.
The same can be said about God. If God "answers" prayers this way then there is truly no way for him to lose, or make him look like he is in fact ignoring you/or is imaginary.
Overall-
Heres how I look at religion. I know it's a bad example but I couldn't think of anything better.
God is like Santa Clause.
God- He expects you to believe in him and Jesus Christ, he also expects you to do good deeds/holy things. If you did that you will go to Heaven.
Santa Clause- If you believe in him and if you're a good boy/girl then you will receive presents.
Except any sane human stopped believing in Santa Clause at the latest maybe 10 years old. Except God to me is like a glorified Santa, that people still believe to the day they die. Hopefully you can see the point I am trying to make.
As you see I have tried to point out some of the blatant fallacies that plague the Christian religion as a whole. I am in no way trying to make you an Atheist. This is just a collection of my own ideas mixed with those of other people to create something I think can Atheists can use in their debates. If you have been trying to research on your own, then maybe this might help you too.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Higher_criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrkj...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGY1iNI5rjA
Note: This was written for speech and debate my junior year (However, i have added much much more now) and was then turned into a 5 page paper of which i got an F on for stating my beliefs on the ideas of Creationism vs Evolutionism. I am NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT trying to turn you atheist. Please understand that i want you to believe in whatever gets you the through the day, if you need God or anything at all to believe that life is worth living or anything else to that matter, go for it. Everyone has the right to believe in anything they want to.
Also, this is mainly for us to discuss this major issue (in my mind).
Please, only serious responses if you can help it :/
Also, this is not all completely orginal work, many of these examples i came up with are from some of those above links or from other research. But, i would say about 95% of it is all my original thoughts, with the exception of the barney doll example and a few others.
So to talk about Christianity you need to know about it.
Christianity as a whole is a monotheistic religion centered around the life of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus was born the Holy Church was the governing body of religious actions. The penalty of sin would be death or most likely death of the soul. When Jesus wasn't ranting and becoming known as a savior yet, the Catholic church told people they could buy and then sacrifice pigeons instead of themselves and go to Heaven. When Jesus saw that the Church was becoming rich, he was outraged. To be frank, Jesus gained the support of many followers and sacrificed himself so that humans could go to Heaven if they believed in Jesus. I'm pretty sure i got most of that right, but i'm sorry if i didn't, and would love some correction on it.
Now, onto some things about Creationism
America has the largest population of people that actually believe in Creationism because in most other countries it is deemed nonsense. Creationists still to this day fight that grades K-12 should learn Creationism because it is a "valid" point. There is still a complete consensus (95% or 19 to 1) among scientists all over America and the rest of the world -that evolution is the backbone of modern biology, and a demonstrable reality historically as well. The truth is most people don't understand Science. They don't understand how science works, or the process such as: Purpose, Hypothesis, Materials, Procedure, Observation, Conclusion. America looked at as a whole is ignorant. 20% of Americans can't find America on a map. So I guess you can't blame them for not knowing the basic definition and steps of elementary science.
To believe in creationism, you don’t have to know anything about anything, and its better if you don’t! Because creationism relies on ignorance. It is not honest research! It is a scam, a con job exploiting the common folk, and preying on their deepest beliefs and fears. Creationist apologetics depends on misrepresented data and misquoted authorities, out-of-date and out-of-context, and uses distorted definitions if it uses definitions at all.
There are basically two types of creationists; the professional or political creationists; these are the activists who lead the movement and who will regularly deliberately lie to promote their propaganda; and the second type which are the innocently-deceived followers commonly known as “sheep
Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or milking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned.
The truth is I can't get any of my intelligentChristian friends to watch any Evangelical shows on TV. Maybe because they know how phony these people really are, or don't want to find out.
Creationism extorts support through peer-pressure, prejudice, and paranoid propaganda, and sells itself with short, simplistic slogans which appeal to those who don’t want to think too much, or are afraid to question their own beliefs. Worst of all, it actually forbids critical inquiry, and promotes anti-intellectualism, and it is based on at least a dozen foundational falsehoods.
Most creationists like you to believe that you have to believe in Creationism or you are not a true Christian and in fact an Atheist.
Quite the contrary actually many scientists renaissance and modern are in fact devout Christians.
One of the earliest geneticists, Theodosius Dobzhansky was an Orthodox Christian who many times professed his belief that life was created by God, but that nothing in biology made sense except in light of evolution.
Another outspoken proponent of evolution, Dr. Robert T. Bakker, (who has PhDs from both Harvard and Yale) is not only one of the leading, and most recognizable paleontologists in the world today, but he also happens to be a Bible-believing Pentecostal preacher.
Dr. Ken Miller, (who testified against intelligent design creationism in Kitzmiller v. Dover) -is a Catholic.
All these men agree that even if there really is a god, and even if that god is the Christian god, and even if that god created the universe and everything in it, =which they all believe- evolution would still be at least mostly true, and creationism would still be completely wrong. They all basically belive, that, "Yeah there is a God in my thoughts" but in some way evolution still takes control over creationism or God made evoltuion occur to better the world in some way.
I also believe that the Bible contradicts itself.
I also believe the Bible contradicts itself.
"Thou Shall not Kill" is one of the Ten Commandments supposedly written by Moses himself. Even though God told Moses to say this, according to his apostles who wrote the bible, killing anyone that worked on Sabbath Day is fine, killing "whores" is fine and killing dis-obedient teenagers is okey-dokey. It just makes no sense to me, along with a couple other things that i do not have the patience to get into right now.
My final piece of the puzzle to break my once closeness to the Creationism beliefs is this whole idea of praying.
In mymind the prayer is broken down into 3 different answers to the prayer. God can say No, Yes, or Wait. Just think about how those 3 responses can make any one believe their words at night are being heard. This prayer trick as Yes, No or Wait is easily broken down.
Lets say a friend asks you to prayer to a stuffed animal of Barney.
You are reluctant but your friend continues to pester so you give in.
You pray for 1000 dollars, not actually believing it is going to happen.
This can turn out 3 Ways.
1. You can get an IRS return check in the mail tomorrowl, and your friend could say "See Barney said Yes to your prayer and he granted it!"
2. This same event could happen in one week instead of a day later and you would get the same response.
3. You wait 6 months and nothing happens. Your friend could say something like "Barney told you to Wait. You must be patient, Barney must remain mysterious."
Either way you know it's nonsense to believe that a non-animate stuffed animal granted your prayer and you would classify the event as coincidence.
The same can be said about God. If God "answers" prayers this way then there is truly no way for him to lose, or make him look like he is in fact ignoring you/or is imaginary.
Overall-
Heres how I look at religion. I know it's a bad example but I couldn't think of anything better.
God is like Santa Clause.
God- He expects you to believe in him and Jesus Christ, he also expects you to do good deeds/holy things. If you did that you will go to Heaven.
Santa Clause- If you believe in him and if you're a good boy/girl then you will receive presents.
Except any sane human stopped believing in Santa Clause at the latest maybe 10 years old. Except God to me is like a glorified Santa, that people still believe to the day they die. Hopefully you can see the point I am trying to make.
As you see I have tried to point out some of the blatant fallacies that plague the Christian religion as a whole. I am in no way trying to make you an Atheist. This is just a collection of my own ideas mixed with those of other people to create something I think can Atheists can use in their debates. If you have been trying to research on your own, then maybe this might help you too.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible#Higher_criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFrkj...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGY1iNI5rjA
Note: This was written for speech and debate my junior year (However, i have added much much more now) and was then turned into a 5 page paper of which i got an F on for stating my beliefs on the ideas of Creationism vs Evolutionism. I am NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT trying to turn you atheist. Please understand that i want you to believe in whatever gets you the through the day, if you need God or anything at all to believe that life is worth living or anything else to that matter, go for it. Everyone has the right to believe in anything they want to.
Also, this is mainly for us to discuss this major issue (in my mind).
Please, only serious responses if you can help it :/
Also, this is not all completely orginal work, many of these examples i came up with are from some of those above links or from other research. But, i would say about 95% of it is all my original thoughts, with the exception of the barney doll example and a few others.