How Real Is Christianity?

sleepy jack · 06-23-2009, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

of course they're not, they're too busy cashing in on the new wave of pseudo-intellectual atheism to actually be pissed off. but if you're implying that atheists all just sit around and muse about how clever they are, i can guarantee that there have been millions of people with a "nothing is true, everything is permitted" attitude that have committed countless atrocities that haunt us today. the real difference is the religious commit atrocities for some half-thought out semi-coherent reason, whereas the areligious commit atrocities just for the hell of it.

What "areligious atrocities?"

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

What I enjoy about atheists compared to Christians is that I usually don't know who the devout Atheists are, the devout Christians make sure to fill in any gray area.

a 'devout atheist' would basically have to say that there is no way that god could possibly exist given the world we know, which really just means they are pissed off at God/want to indict him for suffering. it doesn't really make sense. if there is no God, what is there to be devout about?

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

What "areligious atrocities?"

spree killings, serial killings, political assassinations...

i can't admit to having looked into stalin's soul, but i don't think he was trying to consolidate his relationship with God by murdering everyone who posed a political threat.

sleepy jack · 06-23-2009, 05:49 PM

I think in many of those cases, bar serial killers or killing sprees which are senseless, there were other motivations there. In the case of Stalin they were political and as for political assassinations they were obviously political and had more to do with a specific ideology then Atheism. You can't be motivated by non-belief to act.

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

I think in many of those cases, bar serial killers or killing sprees which are senseless, there were other motivations there. In the case of Stalin they were political and as for political assassinations they were obviously political and had more to do with a specific ideology then Atheism. You can't be motivated by non-belief to act.

non-belief simply removes certain barriers that would otherwise keep you from acting entirely in your own interest. if there is no God, you can't blame religion for religious deaths, since religion would just be a hollow show. you would have to look for human drives that created the religion as a front in the first place.

sleepy jack · 06-23-2009, 05:58 PM

I think that's more what any passionate Atheist does though. They argue against religious institution from an intellectual stand point. Look at Marx, or Nietzsche, or Freud. They didn't blow up any Churches to my knowledge but rather pointed out what was psychologically wrong with religious people in the case of Freud or pointed out that religious institutions were a means to control sheep or oppress the proletariat, in the case of the formers.

I think Atheists, because there's no religion there, have to form their own morality and in many cases (e.g. Camus, Sartre) they appear to be much more humanistic and moral then most theologians. People who senselessly kill are depraved and sick, but they can be of all religious or non-religious kinds and still be disturbed.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

a 'devout atheist' would basically have to say that there is no way that god could possibly exist given the world we know, which really just means they are pissed off at God/want to indict him for suffering. it doesn't really make sense. if there is no God, what is there to be devout about?

devout is a poor choice of word. However your presumption of atheists is incorrect. The majority of atheists I;ve been in contact with believe in the idea of "God" as a human construct and only oppose any religious based perception of God. For those Atheists, it's not so much a matter of "we know we're right" as it is "we know you're wrong "

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

I think that's more what any passionate Atheist does though. They argue against religious institution from an intellectual stand point. Look at Marx, or Nietzsche, or Freud. They didn't blow up any Churches to my knowledge but rather pointed out what was psychologically wrong with religious people in the case of Freud or pointed out that religious institutions were a means to control sheep or oppress the proletariat, in the case of the formers.

I think Atheists, because there's no religion there, have to form their own morality and in many cases (e.g. Camus, Sartre) they appear to be much more humanistic and moral then most theologians. People who senselessly kill are depraved and sick, but they can be of all religious or non-religious kinds and still be disturbed.

Nietzsche basically supports slavery, as long as the master is intellectually superior. Camus and Sartre seem like nice enough guys, but they were French intellectuals who were in the right place at the right time, could say what heretics had been saying for ages and finally not get stoned for it. If there's no basis on which to base moral judgments, you probably will just conform to your society since that seems to take the least work. You could flip out and decide to kill as many sleep-walkers as possible, though. You only need one pissed off VT student for every thousand apathetic existentialists for non-belief to show its destructive side.

Still, I think everyone believes in God on a deep enough level, I don't think things could make sense otherwise. As such I believe every destructive act is a futile 'f you' to God.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

devout is a poor choice of word. However your presumption of atheists is incorrect. The majority of atheists I;ve been in contact with believe in the idea of "God" as a human construct and only oppose any religious based perception of God. For those Atheists, it's not so much a matter of "we know we're right" as it is "we know you're wrong "

the word 'God' is just a human construct, but the 'idea of God,' namely, the idea of a creator and intelligent purpose to reality, can't really be something we 'create,' it's something we 'discover,' though this discovery may just be a projection for our self-awareness onto external reality. to say 'i know you are wrong' means 'i know i am right,' because if you didn't have personal beliefs to contrast the incorrect ones to, how could you say they are wrong? atheism is a belief, which is why it's not agnosticism, but it's a belief which relies entirely on the religious system it is thrown at.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-23-2009, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent

Nietzsche basically supports slavery, as long as the master is intellectually superior. Camus and Sartre seem like nice enough guys, but they were French intellectuals who were in the right place at the right time, could say what heretics had been saying for ages and finally not get stoned for it. If there's no basis on which to base moral judgments, you probably will just conform to your society since that seems to take the least work. You could flip out and decide to kill as many sleep-walkers as possible, though. You only need one pissed off VT student for every thousand apathetic existentialists for non-belief to show its destructive side.

Still, I think everyone believes in God on a deep enough level, I don't think things could make sense otherwise. As such I believe every destructive act is a futile 'f you' to God.

the word 'God' is just a human construct, but the 'idea of God,' namely, the idea of a creator and intelligent purpose to reality, can't really be something we 'create,' it's something we 'discover,' though this discovery may just be a projection for our self-awareness onto external reality. to say 'i know you are wrong' means 'i know i am right,' because if you didn't have personal beliefs to contrast the incorrect ones to, how could you say they are wrong? atheism is a belief, which is why it's not agnosticism, but it's a belief which relies entirely on the religious system it is thrown at.

Atheism is not a belief it is non-belief. I've never identified my self as someone positive there is no "God" discovered or created.

As for the notion that saying you're mean implys, I'm right, no.

The simplest example is this: If you say 6754 x 3244 = 21 I know you're wrong, I may not know the right answer, but I can still spot a wrong one.

Not trying to make a semantically charged argument here, do you see my point?

cardboard adolescent · 06-23-2009, 06:41 PM

not to sound elitist, but try to read my posts until they make sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayfarer

This makes no sense whatsoever. If there is no God, you can't blame God for religious deaths; you can blame religion for them. This is why they're "religious deaths". They'd not have occurred if not for religion, or if they did, they'd have occurred for reasons outside of religion. Religion is absolutely to blame, whether or not God exists.

what are you blaming when you blame religion? if there is no god, religion is just a front for other human drives to express themselves, and as such it is those drives you should blame for being destructive rather than 'the religion,' which is just words. words, in themselves, mean nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

Atheism is not a belief it is non-belief. I've never identified my self as someone positive there is no "God" discovered or created.

As for the notion that saying you're mean implys, I'm right, no.

The simplest example is this: If you say 6754 x 3244 = 21 I know you're wrong, I may not know the right answer, but I can still spot a wrong one.

Not trying to make a semantically charged argument here, do you see my point?

the only reason you can identify an answer as wrong is because you know how to do the calculation, and you know that since you're multiplying two four digit numbers you're probably going to get a number that's at least 8 digits, etc. you have experience with math. if you have no experience with God, you are not qualified to say anything about his existence or non-existence.

i don't know, your post is a little unclear. if you've never been a person who was positive there is no God, that makes you an agnostic not an atheist. i'm not sure what you were trying to get at with that.