Question for theists with belief in a personal god.

[Sasano]

The difference between me and a math teacher is one gets paid to teach people patiently. I am doing this shit for free. I don't need to have patience - if someone shows they are slow or will never listen to reason, I can make fun of them and forget them. I certainly have no obligation to treat them like wayward children in my charge or handle their fragile egos with kid gloves.

As for whether you are a troll, I certainly never suggested that and I doubt that you are. But it's easy to see why people might think so: anyone that so clearly contradicts his own message has to at least MAYBE be a troll. Especially when he does so and then calls YOU hypocritical.

In any case, to say that none of us know the ramifications of religion on people's psyche is beyond ridiculous. Most of us WERE formerly religious.

I haven't contradicted myself,but if you had pointed out could have easliy cleared up any misunderstanding you had.Also taking an analogy literally is a great way to ignore the context excellent job by the way, its also a bit worrying that you're only attachment in the situation would be a monetary one.

I never assumed you had to babied them, or that they should be sheltered by all criticism not at all(all though it could have been perceived that way).What I merely wanted to point out is that all of you should understand that simple misplaced insult will render you're case against religion useless to a vast majority of believers that would have otherwise listened.Im not one to tell you what you can or cannot do, I simply pointing out that what you're doing is deplorable or at least with the reasoning you're giving.("Its my right")

if someone shows they are slow or will never listen to reason

This is what I mean, have you ever stopped to think WHY they don't listen? To them God is real not in the way that Dragons or Bigfoot might be real but a complete certainty so they cannot coupe when you tell them otherwise all the evidence in the world to them HAS to be wrong.A lot of them can understand, but cannot make the leap of not believing.Not everyone is alike thats why some people are "born atheist" thats why theres the common agnostic crutch to crossover to atheism.Point being sure being aggressive can shake up faith and it has its range audience as well as its usefulness, but not everyone will react to it and lot of people will close up because of it.

All I was trying to put forth is that the majority of the religious see things in a completely different scope and when we need to take that into account if we ever want to make progress.Is that REALLY so hard to understand? that maybe its not all about our "lulz"? That maybe were dealing with a handicap opponent?

But with that, I retire from the discussion.Mainly because this argument has become fruitless none of you can even simply relfect on what I'm saying and at this point all its doing is alienating my account.So like I said before you can keep having ur "lulz" and I will keep doing my thing.

P.S.If anyone feels the NEED to continue or have an itch left unscratched you can PM me, and I'll be glad to answer.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Perhaps you are aiming your message at people other than me, but your completely obnoxious first post claimed this entire forum was simply making fun of people or name calling. It completely undermines your message by being full of the arrogance and derision that you are accusing US of. That is why it is hypocritical.
Universal statements like:
"we can never stop ourselves from pulling the quick blows and overall cheap shots"
"You(all of you) come up to say that.."correct me if I'm wrong","Show me proof and I'll believe","Im open-minded unlike religious folk",etc.And quickly assume the role of this superior intellectual rational being who is not as ignorant & as "anti-social" as these "believers but in the same sentence you bash they're beliefs,history and above all God."
"we can't help but act as children making fun of each others favorite team"
"this is what I see in this forums; we say "lets debate" but the majority is surely to impose itself everywhere in a rude demeanor without an actual intention of learning but of "PWNING" or converting."

This may be true of you, but it is not true of me. I use ridicule only as a tool when I think it is needed. As a former theist I know how important these beliefs can be to people, and I've thought about all the implications of that. That you come here claiming we don't is the sort of arrogance and ignorance of our motivations that you are trying to speak out against. I'm not in any of this for the lulz, and I don't think most of the people here are.. When I debate I am open to new evidence. When I hear about 24 chromosomes implying proof of jesus, I tell what I know about what 24 chromosomes would imply look up a few other facts, and THEN laugh about it. Most of the people here are like that.

All those statements completely ignore many posted conversations that we have with theists which show quite the opposite. It ignores that we have had patient discussions with theists on these boards. We do not always bash their beliefs. But YES this is a board where most of us are atheists, so NO we are not all going to be polite. Politeness does not equal reason.

I don't call people names wily nily - and I have thought extensively about WHY they don't listen. We have thoughts about how important those beliefs are to these people. . some may think that ridicule actually changes the minds of some people who have these beliefs, clearly you don't... but it does work with some.

 

[Epicion]

Way too much spam , not going to answer everything. The answer to the first post is simple.

Why is it that god refuses to save me, and millions of others from "ignorance", if he knows, what it takes to "save" me and others from "ignorance"? Unless, he already knows his crew which he wants in heaven with him, and damns everyone else to hell, for reasons that are only obvious to the omniscient.

There are alot of fallacious statements in this question, I'm almost positive in my brief skimming of posts that most atheists said "Bravo!" and continued but I only have a single objection.

Every theist will say the proof is within their respective scripture. So you analyse the evidence and then write your skepticism on it. You have to understand the basics of theology before even pondering on such questions let alone making a judgement. What your dealing with is similar to Peter Pan being portrayed in 3 different books. (Main monotheistic religions e.g Christianity, Islam and Judaism). Now, just because Peter pan seems to be cruel in one book, does not mean he is cruel in others. Just because he claims one thing in one book, it does not mean he will stick to it in another.

Example, mmmm Most Christians believe in the "original" sin, No such thing is mentioned of in Judaism and Islam. What did we learn? Its a different interpretation/different character speaking.

I just wanted to distinguish the fallacy that speaking against God clutching onto to something that didnt make sense in one scripture and therefore claiming to dismiss the character as false is entirely illogical as that same thing may or may not exist in another book or scripture. In reality your dealing 3 distinctly different "Gods".

Forexample, In Islam nowhere does it say God is Omnipresent but in judaism and Christianity they believe he is. Heck, I know Christians who gave him the form of a human being =/ whereas muslims would never associate any shape or form to him/her.

Now to answer the main question at hand (sorry had to back up people with basic theology before really biting into this)

God gave a holy scripture with methods of his choosing (each have their own in their religion). That's the evidence you seek, everyone knows of this scripture e.g what theists believe as "evidence" so asking for evidence to "YOUR" choosing is ridiculous. IT's equivalent to a theist going "I DONT BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION!" and you can show him millions of fossils, genetic similarities and rudimentary organs, along with many programs that simulate it along with scientific reports on experiments regarding fruit flies. But he/she will always say "No! thats not evidence! I want a transitional form!" this is where the famous "Crocoduck" comes in.

You all heard this one right? Then the Atheist explains what a transitional form ACTUALLY is, and explains all the fossils are transitional forms. and eventually the theist scurries along to some random preacher who "reassures" him that the Atheist was wrong and everything is fine again.

It also works both ways

In terms of theology, the claims Atheists make including ones made by such people as Christopher hitchens and Richard Dawkins boggle the minds of Theists and makes us wonder why the heck they even made them

Anyway, I'm rambling. The answer is, If God lead everyone to heaven, this life would not be a test. It's a test because of the hardship of "faith" and the commitment along with work needed to follow the scripture with "faith". It's Religion, because its based on faith and evidence that speaks to individual people from their holy book. If it was evidence everyone could relate to, It'd be called "Science" not religion.

Second point= God "WANTS" people to come to heaven, but at the same time the test of finding the path is set before each one in religion overall. Regarding omniscent. It's true God knows the future/past/present, but at the same time, the choice is not taken away from human beings. People will go to heaven as people will go to hell. Another quality of God, is that he is "JUST" e.g justice is served.

Long post? Sorry, Havent posted for a while and the question required a detailed answer, I won't be surprised if people simply skimmed or even looked past this post.

Thankyou for anyone who made it this far.

-AmazingMuslim

-Edit

Sorry, Almost missed one thing out

An omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God would know exactly why I don't believe in him, but would send me to hell regardless. Have I just described your God?

People would know exactly why you pee in the corner of the bathroom rather than in the toilet, but because of that it does not make the act excusable. A person can know exactly WHY someone may do unspeakable acts, it does not make it right. Scripturally speaking, disbelief in God=Hell. So I still fail to see the connection on how this quote is somehow revolutionary in its fallacy . The rules in religion are set in place, heck you can even say, The police know exactly why your stealing money from the bank, but still will put you into jail regardless.

I'm hoping noone goes "yes but those are all crimes!" but thats the thing ^_^ scripturally disbelieving in God is a crime, thus the punishment remains the same, regardless of why you did it or what went through your mind at the time.

 

[Josan]

[...]
People would know exactly why you pee in the corner of the bathroom rather than in the toilet, but because of that it does not make the act excusable. A person can know exactly WHY someone may do unspeakable acts, it does not make it right. Scripturally speaking, disbelief in God=Hell. So I still fail to see the connection on how this quote is somehow revolutionary in its fallacy . The rules in religion are set in place, heck you can even say, The police know exactly why your stealing money from the bank, but still will put you into jail regardless.
[...]

You're completely missing the point. The fact is that if any God/Gods truly are "JUST" as you put it, they will not send people to hell who do not deserve it (who is nobody by the way, infinite punishment can never be deserved for finite crime), if God demands that people belive in him, then God has to show us that he exists. Demanding faith shouldn't be right in anyones book.

And yes, O.K. Let's not say that "Those are all crimes!", let's just say for arguments sake that not beliving in god IS a crime. Well then God can't be just, at least not the way I see it. It would be like policemen who arrest you for licking you elbow when you had no way of knowing it was wrong. And if you now claim that we "know" that disbelief in god is wrong I will call you hippocritical, as earlier in your post you said that scripture demanded faith, and so we can't really know that it is wrong can we?

If God exists and he created everything. He created "the system" and he created the rules. If he made it so that all of us so simply cannot believe in scripture gets tortured for eternity, then he is worse than any person can ever. In fact, if he made it so that anyone get's tortured at all, I find him worse than any person can ever be.

 

[Epicion]

You're completely missing the point. The fact is that if any God/Gods truly are "JUST" as you put it, they will not send people to hell who do not deserve it (who is nobody by the way, infinite punishment can never be deserved for finite crime), if God demands that people belive in him, then God has to show us that he exists. Demanding faith shouldn't be right in anyones book.

In every monotheistic scripture, it mentions people with skepticism, exactly like yours. The reply is given to such people in the scriptures as well. In the old testament, God shows his back to Moses, In the Quran, there is a blinding light which blinds Moses and he then has to be fixed by God (Actually, I think Moses ACTUALLY dies and is ressurected cause of it) point is, what your asking for is something denied for centuries and is simply accepted as something that will never happen. I mean "showing himself".

As for an inifinite crime can never be given for a finite crime. But why not? Death sentence for betrayal in America still exists. It's a finite crime. Life sentences that keep getting extended till a person's death still exist until they die. By the standards of life, anything up till your death is infinite as you won't be there to see anything beyond that point. Infinite punishment for the crimes that subscribe for them is what is dictated, to pick at this to say "Thats not right" is a little weird because your using your own moralistic view or personal view to say what's right and what's not. Once you begin to do this, you must understand that the feelings change from time to time regarding morals as it's relative to where you live and how you grew up.

Well then God can't be just, at least not the way I see it. It would be like policemen who arrest you for licking you elbow when you had no way of knowing it was wrong.

Strawman, Scriptures are quite prominent and has his main commands and laws in. If you want to say e.g that someone doesnt know about God, what about them? Well, your talking about a society that has been untouched by man. I can;t make any judgements as to what practices they may follow and what they may do that is against God's laws. All I can probably say is , if they don't know they are not to blame.

If God exists and he created everything. He created "the system" and he created the rules. If he made it so that all of us so simply cannot believe in scripture gets tortured for eternity, then he is worse than any person can ever. In fact, if he made it so that anyone get's tortured at all, I find him worse than any person can ever be.

I fail to understand why you said that he made it so that we cannot believe in scripture. Why? Who claims this? Millions upon millions believe in their own respective scipture. People memorise their scriptures by heart e.g the Quran , young and old.
As for finding him worse than any person, Why It's like criticising someone for telling you to do something and they will reward you and if you do not, you get to be punished. Basic parenting IMO.

-L

 

[Josan]

I don't really have to much time on my hands right now, so I won't get to respond to everything right now. But I would also like to add that I see I had quite a few typos in my orginial post that made it a bit more confusing. What I mean to say was "If he made it so that all of us who simply cannot believe in scripture gets tortured for eternity, then he is worse than any person can ever be.". But the typo also makes sense to me, if God truly wrote the bible or the quran, then he should have realized he did a poor job. The fact is he created this world, why should I be punished simply because I doubt his existence based upon poor evidence.

Why It's like criticising someone for telling you to do something and they will reward you and if you do not, you get to be punished. Basic parenting IMO.

Anyone that uses physical punishment on their children are bad parents. Good parents try to use little punishment, and when they punish they do it be removing some of the benefits, "No dessert" "no tv for 2 weeks" etc. Of course there are other ways, but to physicly threaten and hurt your children is WRONG. Also, it is a little different between normal parents and God, if God is true then he could have created everything so that he didn't have to punish anyone. If he was real, then he could easily show me that he is real, and by that I don't mean actually showing himself to me, but simply do whatever it takes for me to belive, if he is omniscient then he knows exactly what it would take. If God is so kind, loving and just. Why won't he show me in the way I need it so I can truley repent?

 

[Espi]

Basic parenting IMO.

If you think eternal hellfire is basic parenting, please don't have children.

 

[DarwinsOtherTheory]

If you think eternal hellfire is basic parenting, please don't have children.

Not only eternal hell but death to those who leave the faith.

 

[GoodKat]

Anyway, I'm rambling. The answer is, If God lead everyone to heaven, this life would not be a test. It's a test because of the hardship of "faith" and the commitment along with work needed to follow the scripture with "faith". It's Religion, because its based on faith and evidence that speaks to individual people from their holy book. If it was evidence everyone could relate to, It'd be called "Science" not religion.

The vast majority of people who have lived on earth never had the opportunity to read the Quran and take your "test", were their lives meaningless?

 

[Epicion]

The vast majority of people who have lived on earth never had the opportunity to read the Quran and take your "test", were their lives meaningless?

Depends, The Islamic belief is every form of generation was given some form of guidance. The Quran is but a continuation of it. So if your saying, lets say some african tribe, and they genuinely had never heard of God etc. Then no they can't go to hell because they are blameless in that matter. Exceptions will always be made as long as life continues, Obviously certain things might be judged even if a person does not read the Quran e.g if they murder, rape etc. But they will not be prosecuted for not praying if they had never had a chance to know how.

Anyone that uses physical punishment on their children are bad parents. Good parents try to use little punishment, and when they punish they do it be removing some of the benefits, "No dessert" "no tv for 2 weeks" etc.

Good and bad are subjective opinions. Violence only breeds more violence unfortunately and the more subtle punishments get, the less effective they become. It is quite a paradox. I've lived in Pakistan for many years in my youth and corporal punishment along with hitting your child was a common practice. It is not condemned, so in their opinion its something common and is how a child should be raised.

I was referring basic parenting from Richard Dawkins actually, Your welcome to watch "The Root of all evil" in which he explains that a child does not have enough time to comprehend everything and thus is reliant on the parents to tell he/she how things work as it would be physically dangerous to try some things out.

If you think eternal hellfire is basic parenting, please don't have children.

Eternal? I don't know how much you know about Islam. But are you aware most muslims will go to hell?

Not only eternal hell but death to those who leave the faith.

I covered this in much greater detail in the previous forums. The conclusion was basically that there are 2 opinions regarding this. A more liberal one is taken from Surah 2, e.g "there is no compulsion in religion, Truth stands clear from falsehood" and the other is not in the Quran but hadith which dictates the apostates should die. Due to there being two opinions and no single one, I'm bound to defend both.

But, the death penalty is only given in Islamic countries, so in Britain or America, It won't happen.

-Am

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Furthermore quote mine is a self deplorable act, wouldn't you agree? The quotes have nothing to do with each other even if you consider my statement "e-alpha-male" a blatant lie and just used as an insult my quote above is referring too how WE as atheist can NEVER stop ourselves from bashing believers in a topic with such sensitivity.

You have to understand having a bigger post count doesn't give you the right to assume,friend.

Oh no!

A quote mine?

And there was me thinking that I'd just highlighted an insult made by you after your bashing of people who use "cheap shots." You called Joe an "e-alpha male persona." I'd call that a cheap shot. What YOU have to understand is that if you say one thing, you really can't expect respect when you violate it a few posts later. In any case, we frown on that sort of thing here. It seems unsportsmanlike to give you a warning for something that happened a few weeks ago, so I won't.

There's no inbuilt need to be respectful of religion if the fundamental arguments being made are sound, which of course they are.

And "a bigger post count"? Are you out of your mind? You must be pretty insecure if you genuinely think I set ANY store by post counts.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

And I did accept it, You can have you're lulz and I don't have to associate myself to that.

Just to continue in the trend you have set for us, do you mean "your"?

I can't think of a single time I've labelled myself as morally superior, which is another of your accusations. However I'd certainly label myself as intellectually superior without qualms.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

An omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God would know exactly why I don't believe in him, but would send me to hell regardless. Have I just described your God?

I'm hoping noone goes "yes but those are all crimes!" but thats the thing ^_^ scripturally disbelieving in God is a crime, thus the punishment remains the same, regardless of why you did it or what went through your mind at the time.

Ah, it's you again. I wonder if you're yet able to justify why something deemed a crime scripturally should have ANY impact on people who don't follow the scripture? I mean, from the christian perspective you're going to their hell; they are going to yours. I imagine both sides are similarly unwilling to extend the argument they use to dismiss one scripture towards THEIRS.

This is just an extension of your attempt to support the death penalty for apostasy; "it's written down so it applies to everyone!" I felt that was amusing fail.

Fortunately for me, I just finished my own scripture. It states that people with the alias "AmazingMuslim" will go to a hell of hot lead and cold comfort for not believing in William, the magic screwdriver. Are you going to change your ways and believe?

Thought not.

 

[Th1sWasATriumph]

I covered this in much greater detail in the previous forums. The conclusion was basically that there are 2 opinions regarding this. A more liberal one is taken from Surah 2, e.g "there is no compulsion in religion, Truth stands clear from falsehood" and the other is not in the Quran but hadith which dictates the apostates should die. Due to there being two opinions and no single one, I'm bound to defend both.

But, the death penalty is only given in Islamic countries, so in Britain or America, It won't happen.

You're defending two more or less conflicting viewpoints from the same religion? If you defend both, how come you were defending the death penalty with vigour when last we met; and yet you barely mentioned the passages from the Surah? How can you endorse two antithetical perspectives?

 

[Cyrathil]

In every monotheistic scripture, it mentions people with skepticism, exactly like yours. The reply is given to such people in the scriptures as well. In the old testament, God shows his back to Moses, In the Quran, there is a blinding light which blinds Moses and he then has to be fixed by God (Actually, I think Moses ACTUALLY dies and is ressurected cause of it) point is, what your asking for is something denied for centuries and is simply accepted as something that will never happen. I mean "showing himself".

Doubting Thomas, the Apostles, the some 500 which Jesus apparently appeared to after being resurrected. The miracles apparently done while Jesus was alive, which were apparently well witnessed. The giant flaming Cross apparently seen by Constantine, which apparently signified that Yahweh was on his side, which led to the accepting of Christianity as the major religion of his empire, and which started it on its way to become one of the major religions. The Christians that are alive to day (and which have lived since the two thousand years since Jesus died) reference fulfilled prayers as evidence for the fact that their deity exists (it's crap evidence, but they still apparently get the evidence they seek. If this deity exists and is doing it, why not us?). There is the fact that in the New Testament it says specifically "if you pray for X, I will give you X", multiple times.

In the Old Testament Moses talks to Yahweh on almost a daily basis, as does most every major character in the OT, including the numerous Prophets (since only Yahweh could see the future, and so any prophecy would have to come from him, as reasoned by the OT). The Israelis were guided by Yahweh through the desert. When they were hungry manna fell from the sky, and when they were thirsty Yahweh made springs appear from the ground for them. Yahweh personally killed a number of people, as well as a few cities. Adam and Eve would have had no question whether Yahweh existed.

There is absolutely no question that, in the Jewish/Christian tradition there is absolutely no qualm with Yahweh to present the people with some form of evidence of his existence. I've never read the Qu'ran, so I won't mention it. It might be that its stance is different. But you can't make a case that the Jewish/Christian Scripture says that you have to have faith. Most of the people in the Scriptures had met Yahweh personally, or seen miracles occur. I've never seen a miracle, and have never seen Yahweh myself. I'm not asking for special treatment. I'm asking for the exact same treatment most of the characters in the Scripture were given. I am asking for the same thing Doubting Thomas was given, the 500 people to see Jesus post-ressurection.

It might be that Allah is different, and isn't as lenient with showing itself, but your claim was that the Monotheistic Scriptures treated skepticism the same way, not that the Qu'ran treated the skepticism a certain way.