I was talking about religion with a Christian friend of mine and I thought I would post my responses to her assertions. It might help ex-theists of all stripes talk to theists in their lives. I must warn you it is quite long, in my word processor it is 8 pages and there are a lot of links, but i think it is a good write to those who wish to read. She is responding to something I said in a text message so I can't share the original text but I don't think you need to read it to understand. Feel free to comment on how you think I did and leave tips for others about talking to theists whether they are muslims christians or otherwise.
“If you’re saying He’s like the boss because he makes the rules and carries out judgements you are right in that sense. He created the world he has that prerogative.”
-False. I did not make the claim that he was the boss or like a boss. I said he was like a mob boss. A mob boss is the leader of the mafia. The reason I used this analogy is because of the protection racket commonly used by organized crime against a business in order to extort money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket. The mafia in areas where the mafia has control of an area will come into businesses and offer them protection if they pay them. But the payment doesn’t protect the business from anyone except the mafia themselves. If the mafia does not receive payment from the business they can destroy the businesses products, destroy the building the business is housed in, or harm or even kill the business owner or his/her family. This is what is known as a protection racket, and it is highly illegal. The mob boss offering protection to the business is hardly a savior because it was he that created the entire situation to begin with. Conversely God according to your religion (as well as Judaism and Islam might I add) is the supreme ruler of the universe. He created the rules on which the universe operates including the criteria of which souls are judged. According to Jesus Christ: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:19. May I juxtapose this with another verse from the Bible to drive my point home, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” John 14:6.
This of course sounds good, but it sounds less good when you consider that nothing happens that is against God’s will (according to your religion) and that God is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being. Meaning that he is all powerful, he knows all things past present and future, and is present everywhere all the time. The concept of original sin is absurd considering this notion. First off I doubt you would find many people that say if a child’s father is a murderer the child should be punished for his/her father’s crimes. In fact the overwhelming majority of people would declare such a notion wrong and immoral. The notion that Adam committed original sin and thus acted as a representative for all of humanity and thus we are all punished for Adam’s original sin is asinine. I never elected Adam to be my representative, I didn’t even know the guy. But furthermore God according to your religion is an all knowing being, he knows the future and thus knew what Adam would do even before he created the universe. This takes free will completely out of the equation. If there is a known future then you are fated to do something, if it is your fate to do something you did not do it out of free will, you had no choice, the groundwork was laid. So why did God put the tree there if he already knew what they would do? And the fact that before Adam ate the fruit he had no concept of right or wrong and thus could not even begin to comprehend the consequences of his actions and why what he was doing was incorrect and yet still be punished for it severely is evil. We don’t punish small children for doing something that is bad when they don’t know what they were doing. We sit them down and correct the behavior and explain to them why what they did was wrong so that they understand. I believe a truly loving, good, and benevolent god must at least meet human morality and go further and exceed it.
This of course brings us to the point of Jesus Christ which Christians call God’s grace that he died for our sins. First the concept of original sin is asinine as stated above and secondly lets return to the mob boss/mafia analogy. Ok so God has already created this system where you cannot win, you must pay him tribute or you will be tortured for eternity then he says ok well I’ll send my son and if you believe in him then you can go to heaven. Thats just like a mob boss saying well you know if you don’t pay us money we are going to ruin you as a person and hurt your family but if you pay us out tribute we’ll protect you from all of that nasty business. Its extortion, its racketeering, and its blackmail, certainly something an all loving, all good, and all benevolent god would not do. God created the situation to begin with and now he tries to extort worship from human beings or he will torture them for all eternity. Thats not a good god. That is a wicked and evil god. Even if he did create the universe (which first you must prove his existence and that he is in fact the creator) that doesn’t give him the right to do whatever he wants. A man and a woman can create a child together, but that doesn’t mean they can murder or torture the child if they so please because they created it. Its unethical immoral and wrong to suggest such a thing which you are doing when you say “god can do what he wants, he created the universe.”
“God never condones rape. And the wars served as judgement on sinful nations to show God’s might and reveal the seriousness of sin, to show the nations that He is real and involved in His world, not ignorant of their abhorrence.”
-Again you must prove that sin exists because I would argue it does not, next you must define sin and why your version of it is correct. Almost all religions have sins and some of them differ as to what is sin and what is not. You asked me why am I putting Islam in the same grouping as Christianity, there is a good reason and I’ll answer that now. Islam and Christianity are both Abrahamic religions meaning that they trace their lineage to Abraham and claim authority for their religion based on that lineage. But Islam also serves as a great counter and contrast to Christianity especially on the topic of sin. In Islam assigning partners to god is called shirk. It is the one sin that cannot be forgiven by god. The Christian claim that Jesus is the son of god would fall under the category of shirk in Islam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirk_(Islam). Muhammad and his followers could use the excuse you did to justify their actions when you said, “the wars served as judgement on sinful nations to show God’s might and reveal the seriousness of sin.” And the Muslims did. The whole campaign of Muhammad was to show the pagan idolaters the true religion and convert them or they would be punished. You could make the argument that god was working through Mohammad to punish the idolators and reveal to them the seriousness of their sin. Furthermore you could argue that god did reveal himself to this Pagan Arabic worshippers because Muslims believe that God sent down the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospel as his word but they were corrupted by human hands so he needed to send the Quran. Certainly these books were known to many people by the time Mohammad entered the scene. This is from the Quran to drive my point home: “Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and His messengers and Gabriel and Michael - then indeed, Allah is an enemy to the disbelievers. And We have certainly revealed to you verses [which are] clear proofs, and no one would deny them except the defiantly disobedient.” Surah 2:98-99 (on a side note might I add that Allah is actually the Arabic word for god and the word Allah is used by arabic speaking Christians and Jews to refer to god, its not a separate name)
Furthermore this tactic of submission or death has been used throughout history to gain control of land and resources by many and you cannot absolve the Hebrews of it because their god said so. As I stated the Muslims used this tactic to spread Islam, if you can make the claim you did for the Hebrews then you have to for the Muslims as well to have a consistent position. Additionally this tactic was used by the Persians, the Romans, the Mongols, the Christian Europeans coming to the New World. In all of these situations you had to submit to their way in some form or you would be put to death or at the very least severely abused and mistreated. The Romans, Persians, and Mongols for example would allow you to keep your religious beliefs but you had to submit to their law and pay them tribute (taxes). The Christians largely demanded that the Native Americans convert or die, become slaves, be mistreated, etc. Furthermore Hitler used this tactic in World War II. If you did not want to cooperate with the Nazis when they occupied your country you would be executed or at the very least be made a political prisoner and sent to the concentration camp. You cannot absolve the Hebrews of this when refuse to absolve others. Furthermore what was so bad about the other tribes that they deserved to be subject to a genocide? I can guarantee you anything they were doing was not nearly as bad as the genocide, mass slaughter, and rape that the Hebrews subjected them to. Just because you don’t like what someone is doing is not a reason to kill them, and any god that condones this is an evil god and I wouldn’t worship such a god even if he/she DID exist.
“You mentioned all that religious individuals had done to mess up this world, but what about those without religion or abrahamic background?”
-This is an excellent question Ruth I’m glad you asked it. You can certainly make the point that Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, were all atheist without religion and that they inflicted great crimes of humanity on masses of people. Stalin killed 20 million people, more than Hitler, the difference is that this slaughter was not driven by religious bigotry and zealots using their religion as an excuse to hurt others. These were power hungry madmen who wanted to silence any and all political opposition. They still had a dogma, it just wasn’t a religious dogma. Its dogma that I am against not explicitly religion. “dogma |ˈdôgmə|
noun
a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true: the Christian dogma of the Trinity | the rejection of political dogma.”
Its the dogma in the Abrahamic religions that I find so repugnant, this them or us mentality and those who do not adhere to our way must be punished and punished severely. Thats what I take issue with, I am against any system of belief that promotes this but not all religions do. Wicca and Jainism for example do not promote this idea, they are relatively benign. The Wiccan Rede lays down what Wiccans believe and the principles they must live by, you can read it here
http://wicca.com/celtic/wicca/rede.htm. You can read more about its history here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiccan_Rede and about Jainism here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism. Part of the Wiccan Rede states: “An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will.” This means you can do whatever so want so long as what you are doing is not hurting anybody else, I would argue this is harder to live by and more moral than a lot of the things taught in the Bible. But no where in the Wiccan Rede does it say something like this: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” Luke 19:27, thats Jesus Christ himself talking. And it certainly doesn’t set up unbelievers as bad, evil, wicked people that deserve to be punished for all eternity. In fact these religions do not have any punishment for non-believers and thus no poison dogma. That is why I say they are benign.
I am against any system though were religion is used against another group of people as a weapon whether they are Abrahamic religions or not. A good example of this are what the Buddhists and doing to the Muslim Rohingya people
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/plight-rohingya-0022301. I am against dogma more specifically not religion and it doesn’t matter where that dogma comes from or if its secular, political, or religious, if it is harmful I’m against it and the dogma of the Abrahamic religions is harmful therefore I am against it.
There is a quote that says: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” -Steven Weinberg
“True Christians are called to imitate Christ’s character. Many call themselves Christ’s but by the admission of their hearts and lives they do not belong in his Kingdom.”
-You may be surprised but I have no objection to this. I think that the Jesus Christ as portrayed in the Bible 99.9% of the time acts virtuously and morally and certainly everyone can live by some of his teachings whether they are a Christian or not. There are some good things that he teaches that I’m a fan of like turning the other cheek and not judging others. If you are just interested in using [most] Jesus’s teachings as an example I have no problem with that, I’d even say he’s a good example of a good person. But Muhammad also taught some really good and profound things to live by as well, the Quran says: “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors” Surah 5:32.
Certainly you could make the argument that that is an excellent verse to live by and Buddha as well also has a lot of good teachings. The issue I take with Christians is that they accept the Bible is the word of god and believe that it is something to base your life around, but much like the Quran, yes there are good things in it but there are also some terrible terrible awful teachings in it. I say keep the good where you find it and discard the rest.
“Why is it that you have put Islam in the same category with Christianity and Judaism? Islam was born of Ishmael, Abraham’s rebellious son who despised the God of his father.”
-Ok first I ask, how do you know? Were you there can you point to any contemporary (documents written during the same time period) extra-biblical historical documents citing this? What you have offered me is a heavily influenced Christian view of Ishmael, Muslims have a different view on the matter. From a historical perspective, Mohammad did consider himself and the Arabs to be descendants of Ishmael and from a historical perspective Mohammed founded Islam in the 6th Century A.D. not Ishmael. From the Islamic perspective Mohammad did not create Islam, he is the restorer of the true religion of Abraham because Islam means submission to the one true god and a muslim is a servant of the one true god. From the Islamic perspective Adam was the first Muslim. Islam venerates the prophets of the Bible; Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, Solomon, Jesus, etc as prophets of Islam that god sent to the Jewish people. They also believe though that god sent prophets to other people as well, Ishmael and Mohammad were some of the prophets they believe that god sent to the Arabs. In Islam Mohammad is viewed as the restorer of the true monotheist religion of Abraham; Jesus and Moses are viewed in the same light. They were restorers sent to the Jews to bring them back to the one true god, but their scriptures were corrupted so God sent the Quran to Mohammad and God is protecting the Quran. This is what Muslims believe. If you want to learn about Islam go to a Mosque and ask an Imam or at least read the Quran. Don’t listen to a Christian pastor, minister, whatever, and say ok well they said this therefore Muslims must believe this. Thats not the way to learn about a group of people. Anthropology teaches that if you’re going to learn about a group of people you actually need to talk to them. I’m not going to say, “you don’t know what you’re talking about because you don’t talk to Muslims.” Indeed I think Muslims are guilty of the same spin machine that Christians are, but reading the Quran and some of the Hadiths will give some true insight to what they actually believe.
It would also be good for you, I know that you don’t believe in Islam but you should seek out a rational reason why you disagree. Reading something you disagree with is often good for you, if what you believe is true it will get stronger in the face of scrutiny. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain if your beliefs are true. I’m reading the Quran, the Bible, and I just ordered a summarized version of the Sahih al-Bukari, a Hadith. I’m a practicer of what I preach. I just think that people should have the courage to question everything, including their own beliefs.
“As far as what you said about Hitler, I don’t care what he claimed, he did not adhere to God’s law and therefore cannot be called a Christian in as much as I cannot be called a cat or a table. Obama claims to be a Christian but is instrumental in putting laws into place that absolutely go against God’s”
-I understand where you are coming from, believe me I used to make all these same arguments myself. The problem is like all other religions, Christianity is subject to interpretation. You can find one group of Christians and they will tell you that they are the real Christians and that they are following God and those other “Christians” are not then they’ll rattle off a bunch of Bible verses that support them. So you will go to the Christians the other people said weren’t true Christians and these Christians will tell you that no those other people that you talked to aren’t real Christians but they are and they will rattle off a bunch of Bible verses supporting them. Christians themselves are not in agreement of who is a real Christians, even the Bible is not completely sure. “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:22-23. Come on driving out demons is a pretty big deal don’t you think? Religion is dependent on interpretation thats why you have Catholics, Methodist, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Evangelicals, Coptic, Orthodox and thousands, literally thousands of other sects in Christianity all claiming their way is right and others are incorrect and all are able to use the Bible to justify their positions. If God was really all-knowing he would have foreseen this problem by the way and put in steps to insure all these misinterpretations did not occur, I mean if he was all good, all loving, and didn’t want anyone to go to hell that is.
And what laws of Obama are against God’s please elaborate. Second why do you think we should be governed by religious law? That never turns out well, look at the Islamic theocracies. I am against any system of government that is a theocracy. The United States is a secular republic not a theocracy. Proof of this is found in the First Amendment.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” -Amendment I, US Constitution.
“You said Christians have always stood in the way of progress? I do not see ample grounds for that claim. Do you realize all those ideals were laid down by God and his church through the Holy Spirit? You asked me about the Old Testament which includes the 10 Commandments. What is preached constant & consistently is freedom and equality to all men. Do you not see that? The problem has always been sin. I do not understand why God allows it but again thats his prerogative.”
-First I did not say Christians stand in the way of progress I said religion does specifically dogma. And no I don’t see this equality that you speak of. The Bible does not preach equality in its entirety. Read Leviticus. There are to many versus to directly quote so I’m just going to rattle off where you can find them and you can read them yourself. Slavery: Leviticus 25:44-46, Exodus 21:2-6, Exodus 21:7-11, Exodus 21:20-21, Ephesians 6:5. The Bible does not condemn slavery, it actually approves of the practice! This is not equality, and these verses were used by American and Europeans on the whole issue of slavery when abolition was happening. I already rattled off the rape verses but I’ll rattle them off again as they have to do with women’s rights. Some of these verses also condone genocide: Judges 21:10-24, Numbers 31:7-18, Deuteronomy 20:10-14, Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (this one is quite disgusting), Deuteronomy 22:23-24, Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Judges 5:30, Zechariah 14:1-2. Lets look at other Bible verse degrading women 1 Timothy 2:12-13, Genesis 3:6 (women are blamed for bringing sin and evil into the world via Eve), 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and there is many many many others. Do a google search for sexism in the Bible its disgusting, I think women are equals they are not meant to serve men and they deserve the same kind of respect you would give to anybody else. Now lets more on to racism and extension of slavery: Deuteronomy 23:2-3 (hardly a fair god. Might I had that Ruth was a Moabite? The biblical Ruth not you Ruth haha and Ruth is the grandmother of David and the Bible draws a lineage between David and Jesus so Jesus was related to Ruth, a moabite.) How about religious bigotry? Deuteronomy 13:6-10, Deuteronomy 13:12-16, Deuteronomy 17:2-7, Deuteronomy 17:12-13, 2 John 1:10, Romans 16:17, Colossians 2:8 (promoting religious bigorty and ignorance.) There are many others, if you want to read the dirt in the bible they list a bunch of them at
www.evilbible.com. Yes. This god stands for equality sure. Why has god allowed “sin” into the world which by the way you must demonstrate sin exists via existence of god and then prove that your interpretation of sin in the correct one. I stated that above...way above. May I also offer this resource:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html? Watch these please:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj2pwtqxrVQ&list=PLF2C41FAA74CD8F47Let us not forget the scientific progress that religion tries to hinder and when it can no longer hinder it it tries to deny it. Look at the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution for example and Christians in America are constantly trying to get this accepted scientific theory out of school. And before you say “just a theory,” (if you were going to explain it) I think I feel a need to explain what a scientific theory is. A theory in science is not an idea, that honor goes to a hypothesis. A theory in science is the highest point that any thing in science can achieve. It is a collection of scientific laws, experiments, observations and peer reviews that DO NOT contradict each other. If there is one contradiction of the data in science it is back to the drawing board the hypothesis (or theory if it has gone that far) is wrong if there is even one piece of data that does not match. Here learn about the scientific method Richard Feynmann, a famous scientist, does a good job at explaining how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw. Also look at these,
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/images/ScientificMethod.jpg,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method. This is how science works, a theory in science is as far from a simple idea as you are from being a table. Look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_gravity, look they are theories. Might I also throw in Quantum Theory, Theory of Thermodynamics, Theory of Continental Drift, and Theory of Relativity as all theories. With the proper understanding of what a scientific theory is you cannot make the statement, “its just a theory,” science is truth thats why it gets better when subject to scrutiny, thats why I say thats why truth only gets better when subject to scrutiny. If what you are believing is true it has nothing to fear from scrutiny and skepticism but if its false it will crumble in the face of these things.
Watch this please:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5vid4GkEY&list=PLAC3481305829426DAll of this is talking about my beef with dogma and religion, and I openly admit nothing I have said thus far disproves the existence of a god. I’ve only been addressing my problems with dogma. Well I’m about to tell you why I believe what I believe. I actually don’t like the term atheist, it only describes what I am not. The only requirement for atheist is a disbelief in god(s). Not all atheists are the same, some Buddhist sects are atheistic in nature. I consider myself a Freethinker (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought) and a Secular Humanist (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism). I believe that nothing should be accepted as true in the face of inadequate evidence.
Look at it this way. If I told you that there are fairies that live in my backyard garden and they tell me the winning lottery numbers every day but I just choose not to play the lottery and the reason I know they are real is because my grandfather left me a not about them and they speak to me, would you believe me? Probably not Ruth, you’d probably think I’m crazy. But why think such a thing? Because there is no proof that fairies actually exist, the existence of fairies has never been demonstrated. That still doesn’t stop some people from believing in them though. But it is an unfounded irrational belief without any evidence to back it. But can you really prove that fairies don’t exist? I’d argue no. Evidence can only prove what does exist and what has happened. It cannot serve to prove what doesn’t exist and what has not happened. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence yes thats true. 150 years ago we had no evidence of black holes but now we do. But its irrational to believe something if the evidence is absent. In order for someone to know something is true there needs to be evidence supporting it. I have never seen any “evidence” or “proofs” of a god that cannot be explained by natural means and even if you could prove there was a god you must then prove that that god is your god which is a different battle entirely. Its ironic that we demand evidence for learning about truth in everything in life but when it comes to the most important truth people tell you to take it on faith. Thats why I am an atheist to ALL religions not just Christianity, thats why I am a freethinker. I am a secular humanist because I believe that as humans, as social animals, we have a responsibility to care for other humans. Everyone should strive to make this world a beautiful place for people to live and should strive to help one another in any way they can if they can. We should stand up for the rights of others even if it is the only voice speaking it. I am a humanist in this way
Please watch these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo&list=PL0HH-GRYo5-Yf2DJ4es3OfI3j3fqWRBOgI love this poem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES8rBDQ3ibQThank you for reading and listening if you have made it this far Don’t believe anything I say, investigate yourself. I want everyone to view all the evidence and make up their own mind. Question everything even your most cherished belief. The truth will stand to scrutiny. Always be a lifelong learner. Use that brain
Topic: Discussion With a Christian