Q and A about what it means to follow Christ

"

Bars wrote:

"

Tribulation wrote:

"

Bars wrote:

Since you thanked me for my last question with exquisite politeness but failed to answer it, I'll try with another: what are the misconceptions about Christ you want to dispel?

No, I still have a draft in progress. You question required more thought than the others. I've spent a couple hours on it, but I haven't gotten it quite right. Something just hasn't felt right about what I wrote, so I want to keep revising it.

Stuff like one person saying Christianity is responsible for oppressing the blacks, LBGT community, and such. Hopefully she sees that it isn't God that did that, it is people (who suck pretty bad at times) who do that. Sometimes people say they do that in the name of god, but it is not God. I encouraged her(?) to read the book of Matthew to get an idea of who God is. If she does, she will see that God had no part in that.

I agree with your assessment it's people who do that. However, IMO there's an inherent problem with Christianity which may, in certain circumstances, make it easier for people to accept oppression or actively oppress others, and this is related to my first question.

You'll never be able to get the answer to my first question quite right. I appreciate the honesty and the thought you've put into it, but the fact of the matter is this: you can't know. You can't be certain. There is no logical and reasonable way you can arrive at faith. In fact, faith is the opposite of reason. It's the result of emotions, not reason. Religion is a series of declarative statements based on no logic whatsoever. The Bible doesn't argue, it doesn't explain, it speaks with the voice of absolute conviction.

This is why it is said, "The Bible is read, not understood."

This absolute, unshakable certainty - faith - is seductive. This is what makes religion so successful even today, in the information age, despite the overwhelming evidence the Bible is a highly unreliable source of information.

The greatest conmen all know a simple principle: people will easily believe in lies they wish were true. Religion is a psychological coping mechanism. It is the eyes wide shut to avoid staring at the harsh glare of reality.

We all have a few deep and powerful instincts, and religion satisfies all of them:

- we fear the unknown. The truth is, the universe is vast and unknowable and we can't ever fully grasp even the tiniest grain of sand. Religion is an elegant circumvention of this terrible uncertainty: anything can be explained with God.
- we want to love and be loved. Religion answers this need too. It's a form of intellectual masturbation: it tells us there's this being, which is the greatest being in the entire universe, the creator of all, and it loves us, and we should love it back.
- we hate to think and try to avoid it at all costs. Thinking is difficult. All animals have an instinct to preserve energy, and our big fucking brains consume about 30% of our energy resources. We naturally tend to avoid straining them. Religion answers this need too. It tells us, "no need to think, this higher authority here will do all the thinking for you, and it's infinitely wise and all-knowing! Just listen to it and all will be well. Who speaks with its voice? Why, the church, of course! Now be a good boy and do as we say."

Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Religion can be a balm for the soul, a tool to escape from a terrible reality, or at least to look at it from a more palatable perspective. Also, when the religious authorities act with kindness, they produce friendly, good and generally quite pleasant people (if a bit boring) with a highly developed sense of ethics. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill and so forth - these are fine commandments to live by.

And thus we return at the start, and arrive at my first major gripe with organized religion in the model of Islam and Christianity: it brainwashes people. It teaches them not to think. To follow religious authorities blindly. And the problem with brainwashed, unthinking people is, they can easily be whipped into a frenzy - we all know enough of Christianity and Islam's history, no need to explain what I mean. Because these religious authorities are just people, and they can sometimes be pretty fucking evil, or worse - fanatic believers with good intentions who can't admit or see they might be wrong.

This is ironic because yesterday Scrotie_McB asked me if I would try to convert a priest to atheism and I said no, and also said I don't identify as an atheist. I suppose it doesn't look that way from the wall of text I just wrote. To clarify, I'm agnostic and I think faith could be great, my problem is with organized religion.

I've nothing against God, however we choose to define him, I just dislike the church.

p.s. my other major gripe with religion is its viral behavior. It's a goddamned brain-eating virus, it turns people into zombies and it's contagious. It's especially dangerous for children and people with weak psychological immune systems.

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

You atheists will lose by default. You dont breed and religious ppl will inherit societies by default. i.e. the future belongs to those who show up. http://observer.com/2017/01/muslim-population-europe-religion-growing-worldwide/

"

Aim_Deep wrote:

You atheists will lose by default. You dont breed and religious ppl will inherit societies by default. i.e. the future belongs to those who show up. http://observer.com/2017/01/muslim-population-europe-religion-growing-worldwide/

"

morbo wrote:

The problem is the welfare state. Highly intelligent people, who study for 20 years and work 10 hours a day, have cash but no time to breed. Meanwhile lower class people and religious people breed like crazy (especially in religions like islam, that still applies old biblical logic: "more men == more swords" & "wombs are our weapons").

In a welfare state there is no "culling of the herd" through evolution and the highly intelligent rich guy, who has no kids, is paying welfare support for "Mohhamed" and his thee wives and 10 kids. The west has become decadent, complacent and self-loathing. It will be destroyed and with it all the liberties that our grandfathers fought for.

Unless we drastically diminish the welfare state, but I think that Europe is already at a point of no return.

"

Bars wrote:

Not all of Europe. It's survival of the fittest in Eastern Europe :D

"

Tribulation wrote:

We see science (string theory) elude to that the smallest bits of matter we can measure are just bits of vibrating energy, AKA sound. It is written that God spoke the world into existence.

We see science (thermodynamics) point to the chances of our world coming in to existence by means not of intelligent design to be wayyyyyyyyy less than statistical zero. I can't remember the exact number, but like 14 orders of magnitude less than statistical zero. I do, however, need to spend some time to find the research to back that up for reference.