Religion Debates and Discussions

yeah me neither lol :>

btw if you believe in being a good Christian why'd ya vote for Trump? If this isn't something you don't wanna talk about you don't have to, I won't bring it up again.

 

Nothing wrong with desires. As long as you've done good deeds with good intent in your life.
And yeah, the belief is that the "heaven" in buddhism (Nirvana) requires you to work hard as well. If you work hard in that state, you are reborn with a better life.

 

There fore without god you'd still do nice things for people?

I think you got the wrong idea about us athiests, I'm a people pleaser to my detriment and I'm working on it daily.

 

I'm on a similar Christian standpoint. However, the "you can't be a Christian unless you vote trump" is kind of ridiculous and incorrect. Politics is not related to any religion whatsoever. At least not from my knowledge... Also, to ask the question- "if you believe in being a good Christian why'd ya vote for Trump? If this isn't something you don't wanna talk about you don't have to, I won't bring it up again.", @GlobalistCuck, is a silly question in itself as well. I feel like bringing up politics in a religious debate is just to get people to stray away from the topic in order get people to join your side or could just be a curiosity question, but a very silly and off-topic one. However, I don't think @Gehenna_Beam's answer was any better.

 

To go back to the morals bit, I've already answer Gehenna's question about where morals came from a while back, in a PM.

I've amended some of my older statements, and edited the original post quite a bit because, reading through it again, I found a few things that didn't make sense or didn't quite add up.

 

youve been happy before, so do stuff that makes you happy as often as you can before you die

live every day like its your last

you mixed those up

idk how im not making sense im just asking you what do you think of time

if you believe everything was created by god, do you believe time is created by god

 

What's the point in believing anything? I value truth, and I haven't seen convincing evidence that there is an afterlife, and the most simple answer is that there isn't. The more assumptions you have to make, the less likely the claim. No assumptions go into believing there's no afterlife.

God isn't disprovable, that's the problem. The other problem is that burden of proof is on religion to provide evidence for God existing, not the other way around. God is the claim, and claims need support. Plus there's plenty of evidence that things in the Bible aren't literally true.
If I claim that I have six fingers, the burden of evidence lays with me. I can't say "You have no proof that I don't have six fingers, so why don't you believe that I have six fingers?" because it's my job to prove that I do have six fingers. Ways I could prove it would be showing a picture, video, etc. or doing something otherwise impossible with five fingers, like playing eleven nonadjacent notes at once on a piano.

The point of there being no afterlife is that there isn't anything else after you die, so you live your life in the way you think will have you happiest when you die. I personally find it'd be way better emotionally to live life not worrying about whether or not I'll make it into heaven, or whether or not I've prayed enough. It's just extra stress that doesn't come at clear benefit.

The topic of life purpose has been covered many times by many people already on this thread. I suggest you read some of those responses for ideas.
I suggest finding something that you love, and devoting yourself to it. If you can't find anything you love right away, keep looking. People's preferences change, and nobody can be uninterested in everything forever. Personally, I find music and writing to be great ways to escape from stress, and so I've spent a lot of time putting effort into them. That, as well as everything I've been interested in in the past have given me purpose in my life.

 

"politics is not related to religion whatsoever"

wHAT

Have you ever been to, or heard of, a country called the United States of America? Where there are large groups of people who will just vote for whatever candidate shares their religious beliefs? Yeah, religion is related to politics.

And I'm not trying to get him to stray from the topic, I'm trying to show Gehenna how hypocritical he is. All this stuff about being a good Christian that he preaches, completely contradicted by the actions of Donald Trump. Again it's not a key tenet of this debate, just one of many ways that Christians are completely inconsistent with their own views.

I have some questions/discussion points for the Christians

1. How come we don't see any major miracles anymore, since people have invented photo, video, and have generally become less gullible? Where's the footage of a guy walking on water, or rising from the dead? Why does no one live to 600 years old?

2. Why aren't you a Mormon? Why don't you believe in Mormonism?

3. If God wants every to believe in him and praise him, why doesn't he just use that big booming voice and say "hey everyone, I'm God, I'm real". Instead he always takes one guy aside and says "hey dude I'm god and you're the prophet and you've got the convince everyone else". Almost as if that guy just made it up. You think Moses went up that mountain and brought down the Ten Commandments? No, he went up there, smoked a few cigarettes, wrote some sht down and then went back down the mountain.

4. Do you acknowledge the double standard in requiring evidence for everything EXCEPT God? Almost as if, if you didn't have that double standard, you wouldn't be able to believe in him. Gehenna won't believe in evolution, despite all the evidence we keep throwing at him, and he can't even give us a shred of evidence for creationism?

5. If you don't believe in evolution, next time you go to the doctor because you have an infection, be sure to ask him for anti-biotics from the 1950s. Because they've changed antibiotics since then, to adjust for the fact that bacteria have evolved to beat them. But you know that's fake, so use the old antibiotics. I'm sure you'll be fine.

6. Do you acknowledge that you can't just believe in certain parts of science and not others? That's not how science works. It makes no sense to believe in DNA but not in evolution; they are FUNDAMENTALLY linked. You can't claim "I believe in whatever science that doesn't contradict Christianity", for two reasons. Firstly, like 99% of science does contradict the Bible, try the laws of physics. And no "he can break these laws because God" is not a valid answer; circular logic. Secondly, if you want to not believe in things that have been proven time and time again, you need to be able to back yourself up with reason and evidence. Simply "it disagrees with these stories that I was taught as a kid" is ridiculous.

7. How come the Bible says that every animal went aboard Noah's Ark? But Gehenna says that thousands of species that are now extinct, from dinosaurs, to molluscs, to early mammals, all died in the flood? Is the Bible wrong? Probably. Are Gehenna and other creationists constantly changing their story to try and hide the fact that it really doesn't make any sense? Definitely.

 

1st:
There is a point in believing there's an afterlife. The reason for believing there's an afterlife is that even if I have the wrong faith, I have hope for my life after I die.

I don't think the most "simple way" is to believe there isn't. I think the most simple way is to believe there is something. For example, I am not big on science and things, but there are atheists who believe the big bang created the universe. However, there has to be an outside of our realm being or mass that created it. The Conservation of Mass, for example, says no mass can be created or destroyed. Why would mass created more mass? and if mass was created out from a collision between some random atoms, where did the random atoms come from? It seems just like a massive goose race to find something that's already so simple. If you lived with Jesus in his time and he performed no miracles whatsoever he just said he was the Son of Man, would any of you believe? Probably not, because even when he performed miracles in the bible there STILL wasn't people that believed. Why is that?

There's some things you cannot see but must believe. For example, I've never been to China, but I believe there's a China on the opposite side of the world, because there's clear proof for me to know. For example, people who have experienced being in China. I haven't seen the Son of Man, nor do I have any authority to speak for him alone, but coming from someone who experienced it (and over a quarter of the world), there is a God and His name is Jesus.

What? Extra stress? Dude, even Christians don't pray every day, we don't go to Church every Sunday (at least my denomination). We understand that we are sinners and don't devote our lives to God each and every day. Plus, "worrying about heaven" and "if you prayed enough" are both misleading because neither of those get you into heaven. Only faith through Jesus Christ will.

2nd: What if, I love music and devote my life to music and I am miserable for the rest of my life because I am not good enough? I still love music, but I know I am not good enough for it and that's my only clear passion. I really like singing and rapping, but I cannot pursue that and having a happy life. I want kids and I want a wife. I must sacrifice my urge to play video games (also a passion) and to desire to be Eminem 2.0, because I know I am white (and a bad rapper), in order to find a job to support my future family.

No. politics is related to religion, but religion is not related to politics. There's a clear difference.

 

To be honest, I find people like you one of the best kinds of Christians, on a moral level. But scientifically, still kinda wack. You equate the existence of CHINA with God? I'm sure the Chinese are very offended

I mean a China physically exists, you can go there. Its existence makes sense, you can see it fits in with everything else you know about the world. You can see videos, photos, talk to Chinese people, read about its history. And I know that you know China exists. But why is it the same with God?

- No videos
- No photos
- Makes no sense scientifically
- No one has seen God.

What? Could you explain this last point please?

You do know about politicians like Theresa May and George W. Bush who let their "faith guide them" or whatever?

 

1. How come we don't see any major miracles anymore, since people have invented photo, video, and have generally become less gullible? Where's the footage of a guy walking on water, or rising from the dead? Why does no one live to 600 years old?

That would make life so much easier, life was not meant to be made easy. Because there's no cameras back 2000 years ago. The last question in #1, I can't answer for sure, but it could've been that after the flood God changed things around a bit like the atmosphere.

2. Why aren't you a Mormon? Why don't you believe in Mormonism?

I believe that Jesus died on the cross so he could rise again and get rid of all of our sins. Same as with mormons. I just don't believe there's more prophets nowadays, because I believe Jesus was the last prophet.

3. If God wants every to believe in him and praise him, why doesn't he just use that big booming voice and say "hey everyone, I'm God, I'm real". Instead he always takes one guy aside and says "hey dude I'm god and you're the prophet and you've got the convince everyone else". Almost as if that guy just made it up. You think Moses went up that mountain and brought down the Ten Commandments? No, he went up there, smoked a few cigarettes, wrote some sht down and then went back down the mountain.

Debatable God works in mysterious ways, you cannot simply ask a mere human to tell you why God did something.

4. Do you acknowledge the double standard in requiring evidence for everything EXCEPT God? Almost as if, if you didn't have that double standard, you wouldn't be able to believe in him. Gehenna won't believe in evolution, despite all the evidence we keep throwing at him, and he can't even give us a shred of evidence for creationism?

What evidence do you have of evolution? Because even major scientist are moving away from that.

5. If you don't believe in evolution, next time you go to the doctor because you have an infection, be sure to ask him for anti-biotics from the 1950s. Because they've changed antibiotics since then, to adjust for the fact that bacteria have evolved to beat them. But you know that's fake, so use the old antibiotics. I'm sure you'll be fine.

That's not an evolutionary process. That's called "There's more people in the world and much more intelligent people, because their brains are put to work with all the new information put out".

6. Do you acknowledge that you can't just believe in certain parts of science and not others? That's not how science works. It makes no sense to believe in DNA but not in evolution; they are FUNDAMENTALLY linked. You can't claim "I believe in whatever science that doesn't contradict Christianity", for two reasons. Firstly, like 99% of science does contradict the Bible, try the laws of physics. And no "he can break these laws because God" is not a valid answer; circular logic. Secondly, if you want to not believe in things that have been proven time and time again, you need to be able to back yourself up with reason and evidence. Simply "it disagrees with these stories that I was taught as a kid" is ridiculous.

What in the world... I'm not going to answer this one, because of the extreme bias. You say I can't believe that God's miracles happened because you claim there is no God? Who made you king of the world, buddy? Actually, funny enough, the bible answers all questions in life, which clearly is not easy. When reading the bible you should take it into context, considering not every single passage is speaking to you, specifically, but maybe speaking to a different group of people.

7. How come the Bible says that every animal went aboard Noah's Ark? But Gehenna says that thousands of species that are now extinct, from dinosaurs, to molluscs, to early mammals, all died in the flood? Is the Bible wrong? Probably. Are Gehenna and other creationists constantly changing their story to try and hide the fact that it really doesn't make any sense? Definitely.

You just answered it. And no, creationists are being misled or not thinking enough about the topic because not all of them are good with debating. But I could say the same for people who don't believe in creationism.

Thanks! XD I find myself quite the opposite, morally wack, but somewhat good at debating xD

Well, I've never been to China that was my point. I've never been there where's my proof? Give me a photo and I'll say it's photo shopped. There's only America where I live.

 

https://lookinside.bible/question/m...JImMfhIMZnxMiwUQM5qRQ3aFfcZf9yTQ3AaAha28P8HAQ

Here's a good link referring to the bible and science. Because sometimes many Christians have an interpretation on something, but is actually false. But that's because they had the wrong perspective and incorrect thinking. It's kinda like the- Did you eat grandma? Did you eat, grandma? (Keep in mind I am not referring to grammar, but just how text can be misleading.

 

I understand that there's a point to having an afterlife, I was just answering your question.

Ockham's razor: "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"
Or, in English, for those of us who don't speak a dead language,
"More things should not be used than are necessary."
What this means is that the fewer assumptions, the better.
Here's a comprehensive (not) list of assumptions to make for the claim that there is an afterlife:

• Religion
• Not science

Here's a comprehensive list of assumptions to make for the claim that there is no afterlife:

• Science

You see my point? I mean, unless you want to ignore something pretty fundamental to anyone's understanding of the world.

I recommend doing research on the Big Bang before so adamantly refuting it as being hypocritical and wrong.
I've already, in many PMs and profile posts described how we know the Big Bang was accurate, and sources and proofs for it. I'll leave it up to you to look back for those, but I can also describe the big bang in a way that I feel many people don't see it.
The Big Bang was not the creation of the universe. It was the rapid expansion of spacetime. Think about looking really closely at a rubber band, with some sharpie ink on it. So closely that it fills your field of view. Then, stretch it out. It takes up no more space in your view than it did before because, to you, it was the space in your view. So too with the universe. It's not like all of a sudden everything appeared; it had always been there, in the same way you believe God to have always been there. If you don't believe God to have always been there, then the same argument that you used can be used to rebut.
It's a very hard concept to grasp, which is why pretty much only physicists and really understand it (of course I don't, but I'm trying to). You can do research on it to understand it more, I find it really fascinating.

Because, before the Renaissance, critical thinking was virtually unknown to people. People were convinced by emotion and force more than logic, facts, and proof. Ask any history buff when critical thinking became widespread. Jesus was a very famous teacher, and his teachings on morals were surely very well-known. Someone like that was bound to have plenty of followers, regardless of whether or not he was literally God. Then, probably, one of his followers, or a group of them, decided that someone that impressive must be somehow more than human. Things like that happen today, except they're a lot more far-fetched and crazy than Christianity.
People didn't believe because most people already had some religion or other by the time they had learned about Christianity. People were sometimes so strict in their practices it'd take death to tear them from their religion, meaning Christianity couldn't spread to everybody.

Except I have friends from China, who are half-Chinese, etc.
Also, if China and God are a good comparison, then there should be equally as valid pictures of God as there are pictures of China.

If numbers are what matter, then three quarters of the world thinks you're wrong. Let's leave the number of people with beliefs out of this conversation, because it's completely irrelevant.

I didn't mean that literally, I meant it as an exaggeration to make sure my point gets across. Evidently, it wasn't a good idea, and didn't work, so my mistake.
What I was trying to say was that any actions you take for a cause build stress. Keep in mind, stress doesn't have to be negative (eustress vs. distress).
I see now, though, that your practice of Christianity is pretty different from that of Christians I've interacted with in my personal life, so for you, this doesn't really apply.
I know Christians that do make sure to go to Church every Sunday, that pray before meals, etc. For these people, their religion adds a lot of activity, combined with all the charity work they do. While charity especially is a great thing to do that I don't do enough of, it adds more things to think about into their life, and they're juggling more things.

When asking about the purpose in life, this is pretty irrelevant. Because everyone can choose their own purpose, not everyone's has to be the same. What I was said was, as I mentioned, a suggestion. If you value having a happy family and restful life, then there are other things that you'd need to look for in trying to fulfill that purpose.
I personally find meaning and purpose in my life through music and writing, and my attempts to achieve that meaning have shaped who I am.

Again, the burden of proof is on religion for proving their cause.
Religion is the claim, and claims need support. As for evolution (I understand you didn't say that you didn't believe in evolution, I'm just using this as an example), it is also a claim. The key difference is that enough proof has been provided for evolution that we can accept it as a scientific theory (read my earlier post on scientific theories, or read some articles about them; they aren't "theories" in the colloquial sense).

Special Pleading is also a logical fallacy that religions are often guilty of. Special pleading is defined as "Special pleading is a form of fallacious argument that involves an attempt to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exception." by Wikipedia (which I'm pretty sure somewhere in this thread we've deemed citable). Religions as a whole often do this, the chief example being that they claim certain things, but when tested they also claim that you need faith to see it. This is an example of the special pleading fallacy because it asserts that something is truth, but denies the counterexample when put under scrutiny.

 

I read what you wrote about Trump, doesn't change the fact that he's an abhorrent person and I'm pretty sure Jesus would be disgusted with him.

1. Yes we would discredit them as miracles because they don't make sense and there is no evidence. Also it wasn't just Jesus, right? You said Noah and others, too. And where does it say in the Bible that the limit is 120? Firstly, that's random. Secondly, people have lived longer than that...

2. Alright, but if we put the values aside, do you think Joseph Smith was telling the truth?

3. THIS. IS. SUCH. A. COP. OUT. You can't just rebut any questions you can't answer with "we don't understand him" or "he works in mysterious ways". Imagine how annoying it would be if evolutionists did that all the time. It's not an answer. If he's so hard to understand and he's so mysterious, how come you think you know him better than I do?

4. Two things wrong here. One, WHY don't you need evidence to believe in God? Or on the flip side, why don't you have faith that evolution is real? And the second, do you realise what a bubble you'll live in your whole life when you won't listen to anything that disagrees with your faith? How are you ever going to know the truth if you just pick a viewpoint (christianity) and then close your mind to every other goddamn viewpoint, especially the ones that are provably accurate.

7. You SAID they died in the flood. See how your story changes? You know why? it's because it's all BS.

But I'll humor you. They didn't repopulate adequately? Yeah, no sht, you can't take two of an animal and start an entire population, just think of all the incest and genetic mutations. But since you think humans repopulated, that makes no sense...

They were hunted to extinction? By humans? We are ONE species, they are literally thousands and you think we hunted them to extinction before we had modern technology? In such a short space of time? Without any real records of us doing so? Come on, you know that's BS.

I thought climate change was a myth made up by the leftist media But seriously, thousands of species don't go extinct in just a few thousand years from natural climate change. Human-caused climate change is different, though, so let's not get into that.

1. Isn't it such a useful coincidence that all this supernatural stuff occurred before we had photos and videos? And it doesn't happen anymore? Like, people just made it up, or exaggerated? Come on, dude. And I like how you say you just don't know for the second part, I can tell you it's not changes in the atmosphere. But just think about how silly that bit is, and maybe the rest is pretty silly too...

2. Alright. So you think Mormons are wrong? How come they're wrong and you're right?

3. WHAT

"you cannot ask a mere human to tell you why God did something"

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE THIS. They. Are. Called. Priests. And. Religious. Authorities.

This is the double standard. On the one hand people say "God works mysteriously" and tbh, I like this hand a lot more. It's acknowledging that there's a lot we don't understand and that there's some kind of higher power, which y'know, is plausible. But then on the other hand they say " and this, this and this happened for sure, 100%, and we know these things about God, 100% and everyone who disagrees with us is a heretic."

Is he mysterious or isn't he? Also as I said to Gehenna, it's such a cop out to just avoid difficult questions with "he works in mysterious ways".

4. Um, no, major scientists are not moving away from evolution. Citation, please?

Evolution is an accepted scientific theory, which means it has been tested time and time and time again and is accepted as the best way of explaining how we came to be, by pretty much everyone. It's not perfect, but it's FAR better than anything else we have.

If you want evidence there's: fossils, observed evolution, biogeography, DNA similarities between current organisms, etc.

There's mountains of it, and it's all been accepted by scientists worldwide so let me ask you. What questions do you have about evolution? What part do you get hung up on? Maybe together we can find the truth.

5. Yes it is evolution, maybe you misunderstood.

I'm not saying we got better drugs because we advanced in technology. I'm saying that the bacteria EVOLVED and as a result, we HAD to get better drugs. Technology helped us get there, but the need for better drugs came as a result of bacteria evolving to be resistant to them.

6. Extreme bias. What? I'm biased because I don't agree with you?

And I'm not saying you can't believe in God's miracles because there is no God, what I mean to say is you SHOULDN'T, because it makes no sense scientifically or logically. I don't mean to tell you what you can believe, just what you should believe. And miracles are absolute BS.

I'll give it a try, with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Well yeah, mostly. If I want the truth about what economic policy works, I don't go to marxistideas.com or freemarket.net. I go to fact-based, unbiased economics websites, I try to find a source that doesn't have its own agenda.

So for answers about God and science, I don't go to creationist websites, nor do I go to atheistarmy.com, which is a website I just made up full of atheists who believe that religion should be made illegal. I go to peer-reviewed science papers or well-sourced fact-based websites.

And no, a science website is not biased if it says evolution is real. That's what the facts and the evidence point to. It's not biased just because you don't like the conclusion.

That being said, I am gonna check out 5ive_Head's site.

 

I have absolutely no problem with letting religion and science coexist. After looking at that website, there's nothing in the link you sent that I disagree with. I heard a story from my creative writing teacher, speaking of grammar, that in some English translations of the Bible, a comma is missing, which changes the meaning of the text.
God's name is Yahweh, which translates from Hebrew to "I am" in English. I can't recall the exact place in the Bible, but somewhere Jesus says "Yahweh the way, the truth, and the light (in Hebrew)." In some versions, when translating to English, the transcribers put a comma after "Yahweh," which meant it translated to "God, the way, the truth, and the light," implying that God was the way the truth and the light. However, some transcribers did not add a comma, which meant it translated to "I am the way, the truth, and the light," meaning that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the light. This small but significant difference is one reason that I think the Bible can coexist with modern science. It's flexible, and isn't an end-all, be-all solution to everything.
I'm not sure if the story from my creative writing teacher was true, or it was just a story he made up to teach us about the importance of well-placed punctuation in poetry. If it is true, I don't know how much of an impact it really would have in interpretations of the Bible, since Jesus and God are supposed to be different incarnations of the same thing. Regardless, it's a good example of how the Bible can be interpreted different ways to fit our understanding of the world.
I know Christians who take an even looser standpoint on the Bible, and only believe that it's a set of stories meant to teach morals. They believe in God and an afterlife, but not that every word of the Bible is meant to be literal fact.

Let's not accuse anyone of not paying attention to sources unless we have real reason to suspect that nobody is paying attention to them. I'd like to point out that I've tried to discuss every source directed at me, regardless of what I think its reputability is. Accusing either side of anything is a great way the inflame an otherwise peaceful conversation.

I'd like to point out that I'm feeling like I understand Christianity a lot more than I did before this discussion, and I'm grateful for that. Even if I'm not about ready to convert, I'll be far more ready to see the other side in future conversations, and I'll be able to be more considerate as well.

EDIT: I think that atheists who think that religion is bad in some way beyond refuting science, or that it shouldn't be allowed next to science are ignorant. In my opinion, as long as people don't use it as a way to deny scientific reasoning, I have no issues at all with it. I think religions provide a great set of morals that more people in society need to have and follow.