Goody! More to play with
So you're following the crowd even though you don't know if they're right....
If thats what you choose to do...
That's not what I said at all. I said that I want the opportunity to speak with the greatest minds in history--who, in my opinion, are those who questioned the rules, morals and beliefs of society which they saw no human need for or scientific actuality. Socrates is one of the most famous cases, having been thrown in prison for questioning whether the Earth was at the center of the universe. To quote Agent K from Men in Black, '1500 years ago, everybody
knew that the earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody
knew that the earth was flat. [...] Imagine what you'll
know tomorrow.'
However, even if I were 'following the crowd' without knowing whether they're right or not, how is that any different than the faith of a Christian?
If you had a God that you knew everything about....would he really be God?
No, but I'm not talking about the definition of 'god'; I'm talking about the definition of 'truth'.
I agree that some of my beliefs are based solely on faith but then again aren't all peoples? An atheist believes there is no God. He has no proof of that but that is what he believes.
No, an atheist has no proof that there is no God. Atheism is something that I really don't agree with either because it's another absolutist ideology like fundamentalist religion. I lean towards particular ideologies because they make the most sense to me, but I don't believe anything as fact. All we can
logically know for sure is ourselves, and even that is questionable to me. Any absolutist (atheist, theist) who claims to be a logical entity doesn't know what logic is. Logic calls for the questioning of everything.
For instance, where's Jesus? Exactly. No other religion speaks of a resurrection because all of the leaders are dead and in the ground. Jesus isn't.
But there are countless similarities between religions. Judaism and Christianity are the most obvious, being that the former spawned the latter; but if you look at even ancient Greek mythology, it shares the father in Heaven, son on Earth element with Zeus and Heracles; old Norse religion shares in the bible's prophecies for the end of the world in
Revelations with Ragnarök. To me, this indicates that either ancient civilizations are all interpreting the same events in different ways, or that all of these people felt compelled to explain their universe--the same compulsion that we hold to this day--and they shared in the same means of observation and thus shared in the same conclusions, only with slight differences based on cultural disparities.
God's whole purpose in doing anything is to bring glory to himself.
Another reason why--if you are right--even if I were offered a seat in Heaven next to your god, I would refuse. The thought of an all-powerful being capable of such childish emotion and behavior is truly frightening.
He wants all people to go to heaven but he is such a perfect God that he cannot have sin in his kingdom. So, anyone who chooses not to accept his free gift (whether they have heard it or not) are accountable.
Imagine that I have built you a house for you to live in. I then make a rule that you cannot sit on the upstairs toilet on Tuesdays at precisely 12:30 PM, but I do not tell you of this rule. Would I be justified in throwing you out onto the street for disobeying that rule even though you had no idea that it existed? I guess I would be, since it's still my house and I was giving you the privilege of living in it; but what does that say about my character? If God were to behave like such a landlord, I would be spending my time shopping around for a new place to live. I hear Satan has some pretty sweet digs available; warm climate, intriguing characters, and no absurd house rules.
Now that I've gotten into it, how do you know that God isn't lying and Satan isn't really the 'good' one? It makes sense: God acts like a pusher, forcing you to believe in him, trying to scare you with the consequences if you don't. Then he punishes you if you disobey him. That seems more like a mob boss trying to force you to pay for your 'protection', and sounds a bit like early 20th century politics if you ask me (propaganda, fear-mongering, etc.).
Satan, on the other hand, welcomes everybody and asks nothing in return. He doesn't try to scare you into believing in him. The only reason anybody has to believe that he's a bad guy is because God says so, but like I said, God's word doesn't sound too trustworthy right now.
That was a bit of a rant, so let's move on...
Some scientists who are even Christians can see that the big bang theory and evolution is illogical and that there must be some God (after looking at life cycles, the human body, the world, etc.).
I'll give you the Big Bang theory because I don't give it much credence myself--I view it as no better than religion, in that it is an unproven theory used to explain how everything came into being (I feel the same way about quantum mechanics as well... just sayin'). Evolution, on the other hand, is far too credible to discount. I believe that most people who hold discrepancies with the theory are either not giving it a chance (due to personal bias) or simply don't understand it. If you want indisputable evidence of evolution, look at the cellular level towards the mutation of viruses. Viral cultures are constantly evolving to survive the onslaught of antibodies. Several will be wiped out, but those that are immune survive to reproduce.
Yes and their interpretations are wrong. I could go more in depth of their inaccuracies if you gave me a certain religion though.
What makes their interpretations any less credible than your own?
However, I'll give you an example and describe it's fallacies myself:
The ancient Norse people believed that the entire world, Hell and the Heavens were on a giant tree called Yggdrasil. That, obviously, is false; but the only reason we know that now is because our powers of observation have escalated through technology to the point where we now have the means to disprove it. We were also able to eventually observe that the Earth is indeed round, the causes of lightning, rain, and fire, and so on. Society has also evolved to the point where we can see that widely held beliefs in the past, such as the inferiority of other races and women-- which goes back to biblical times and beyond--are immoral by today's standards.
I used to think the exact same thing! But then I looked in the Bible and found the passage that talks about Paul on one of his missionary journeys. They were in the middle of a great storm and God told Paul that none of the men on the ship would die. The men on the ship could have just said, "Well then were safe. Lets kick back and relax!" but they didn't they grabbed onto drift would and such. This shows that just because you know that whoever God wants to be saved will, doesn't give you the excuse to not obey God and spread his word.
This hardly answers the point I raised. I don't think I can phrase myself any more clearly than I already have, so I'll just leave this be and let it slide as an irreconcilable difference.
Christianity does not believe all those things.
Oh?
We believe that homosexuality is wrong not only because of our own opinions but because God says its wrong.
There's point one that you admit to supporting...
We don't justify War and Punishment on our enemies solely on our beliefs. The only way I can see that would be in the Crusades. The Crusaders were wrong in what they did because God didn't call Christians to try and kill anyone who wasn't a follower of Christ but instead to speak the truth to them in love.
You don't justify punishment based on beliefs? Wait, what was all of that stuff earlier about going to Hell if you don't believe in God? And how about God destroying entire cities himself because of the way people were behaving (behaviour being, if you think logically, just an extension of one's beliefs)?
Point two: confirmed...
Animals are lower than humans but Christians certainly don't depreciate them...
To believe animals to be lower than humans is, by definition, depreciation (to belittle; lower the value of something), and that's point three.
I don't hold myself to be a great man. I have several vices, yet by my own values, I still hold myself to a higher moral standard than your typical fundamentalist Christian. Take from that what you will.
... we just aren't environmentalists.
It seems to me that Christians, if you value the world that your god gave you, should be the biggest environmentalists of them all. Going back to the house metaphor, if you were given a room in somebody's home, how do you think they would feel if you completely trashed the place before you moved out?
NOTE: No, I didn't reply to everything you said. Please don't take it as a lack of rebuttal on my part. I'm trying to conserve space so that this post doesn't take forever to read (long-windedness being one of my faults), so I didn't include that which I feel I've already covered adequately or to be less (not un-) important/relevant content.
EDIT: Holy crap, this turned out long anyways...
@cortjezter: This is my final piece here for a while, so please don't take this as 'back-and-forth' posting. Plus, it would appear that NWF managed to sneak a post in before I was able to finish posting this. I'll leave that up to my horrible internet connection continually dropping out
