...but you can't prove that he does!
Many people think that since I am challenging the existance of their god that it is my duty to prove he isn't here. I can't do that, any more than I can't prove Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny aren't real either.
However, the existance of the god of the Bible is very doubtful. All one has to do is take a look at the Bible with half a brain and analyze what it says. If it's claims can't possibly be true, then the god that it describes can't be true either.
One story that needs a lot of imagination to be true is the global flood and Noah. God was tired of the whole world sinning so he found the only righteous man in the world and told him to build a big boat. You see, it was gods plan to flood the earth and kill every living thing. The animals would be spared by having two of each kind, male and female, get on the boat during the flood.
That would have to be one gigantic boat! You see, not only are there millions of species of different animals in the world, they all need to eat! It would have been a monumental task to gather all the animals as well as enough food for all of them for nearly two years.
The Bible says that god caused it to rain for 40 days. The continual rain covered the world in water and everything not on the boat was drowned.
40 days? If you know anything about weather, then you know that rain comes from evaporated water. Raining for 40 straight days means that the oceans would have to give up water; the resulting rainfall would just fill up what had been previously lost. Further, there are places in the world where it rains constantly and the earth has never even come close to being completely wiped out.
As you can see, take a Biblical story, apply a teeny bit of common sense, and viola! It is nonsense. Besides that, science has never found any evidence that there was once a global flood.
I've talked at length in the past about the Garden of Eden and the nonsense of the magical apple, talking snake, and all that jazz. An all knowing god would have done better. He wouldn't have needed a magical apple. And we all know that humans beings reproduce sexually. We don't pull out a rib, rub on it, blow on it and it suddenly becomes a woman. That never has and never will happen.
Bill Maher asked a great question: "What if you had been told all your life that Jack and the Beanstalk was a completely true story and that the story of Jonah and the whale was a fairytale. Would you be defending Jack instead?"
Why can't people see that the Bible is full of nonsense? Why can't they see that the magical apple being the source of all evil is no more absurd than Pandora's Box being the source of all evil?
Why is one fairy tale staunchly defended by millions of people and the other just told as a bedtime story? If I had one wish, it would be that people all over the world would be able to see and understand that a fairytale is a fairytale, even if it is found in the Bible.
I can't prove the Bible isn't true. But I can't prove that the Lord of the Right trilogy isn't true either. Even if millions of people believe it with all their hearts, that doesn't make it true. People grow up not questioning the Bible because it's what society accepts as normal. However, if you grew up in China and were introduced to the Bible for the first time as an adult, you would laugh while reading it. You would be able to see right away that it is nonsense.
To my readers who are believers, you have been told all your life to never question the Bible. Questioning is blasphemy. The only reason you believe it is because your parents told you to. And their parents told them to. And so on and so on.
Do you believe that the ancient Greek myths about Zeus and Hercules are the literal truth? No, you believe it is a myth. Well guess what? The ancient Greeks did not view it as myth. They viewed it as literal truth.
So what is the difference between your myth and someone elses? NOTHING! They are all made up stories. The one difference is that you live in a society that accepts one and rejects the other. And strangely enough, you believe in the same one that your society believes in. Hmmm. Interesting.
Why don't you find your own truth instead of jumping in the collective boat of flow goers? "Everybody else believes it, so I do too." That's lame. In fact, it's plain out pathetic. Use your brain. Read the Bible and see it for what it is... a compliation of magical fairytales.
I can't prove that the god of the Bible doesn't exist, but I can shed serious doubt by simply reading the book that describes him. If that book is full on nonsense, then so is the "god" who authored it.
Believers, you not only have the burden of proof, you need to disprove all the thousands of other gods before you will have a valid case.
Think about it. Thousands of religions all over the world think they have the only truth. Your religion teaches that you have the only truth. Everyone elses god is false, except mine. How can you be so sure? How do you know that someone elses god isn't the true god? To an outsider, like me, you all just look like a bunch of brainwashed, pathetic, non-thinking, fools running around crying "Lo here" and "Lo there".
"My god can beat up your god."
You all sound like a bunch of whiny children who want each others parents to fight. It's funny. The child who says, "My dad can beat up your dad" is a chickenshit who is not only too scared to fight his own battles, but knows it deep inside.
I can't wait for your god to get his vengance on me for my daring to question him. The very fact that you think your god will damn me to hell for not believing is evidence enough that he is not merciful but insecure, jealous, and angry. I defy all your pathetic gods. So far, not one of them has been able to strike me down with a lightening bolt.
I also find it funny that I sarcastically claim that my god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is the true god and that he was consumed for me. All of you can immediately see how stupid that is and yet your god (who only has a different name) is completely and totally true.
I am constantly amazed at how smart human beings are on one hand and yet how dull and gullible on the other.
Stop living your life for an imaginary god and start living your lives for each other. If it was not for the radical beliefs of certain individuals, the attack on September 11, 2001, would have never happened. People think religion causes people to be nice to each other but it actually causes them to fight and kill each other. The medicine that you think is holding this country together, is what is slowly poisoning you to death.
Think about it. Think, people. That's all I'm asking. Dare to question. I openly defy god and yet my life is just fine. I'm no better or worse off than anyone else. Think! Question god. This is the information age and we can explain many things without god that we never could before. We no longer need god.
God doesn't warm your home. Science does.
God doesn't power your car. Science does.
God doesn't magically cause your phone and computer to work. Science does.
God doesn't make airplanes fly. Science does.
God didn't design the internet. Science did.
That electric blanket that keeps you comfortable at night... thank science.
Running water in your home... thank science.
What has god ever done for you besides make you feel guilty for just being alive? Nothing. Folks, your god does nothing but take your money and make you feel guilty for not giving more. God is just a business and you are the victim of a 2000 year old scam!
13 comments:
I just ran across your blog and I'm intrigued. There is certainly some dialogue to be opened up among believers and those who have seen through the hypocrisy of organised reigion.
let me refer you to pagun-view.blogspot.com, my blog called "In My View", specifically the section on religion and the supernatural.let me know if we have anthing to talk about.
all the best,
Pagun
I find your scientific/common sense take on The Bible sort of interesting. Is The Bible all stuff and nonesense? I am not so sure and I reserve the right to doubt science. In Britain there is that most famous of evangelical anti-believers Richard Dawkins who if it could be proved logically to him that he did not exist should dissapear in a puff of rhetorical smoke. When he is interviewed on television by others they always let him finish his answers, but when ever he has interviewed others the interview always (and I mean EVERY time) is cut short to bolster Doctor Dawkin's verdict on the world. I don't mind Evangelical Atheism, but I have to say I have no real acceptance of it-I grew up with atheistic parents and I doubt their lies were bigger than those inspired by the Mormon Church, but they did lie to me and their lies were part of their belief system, and their lies controilled me and hurt me so I don't accept their system of belief or them. Evangelical atheists often proffer a belief that an atheistic governemnt would be more benign than any 'christian' government. There again I disagree, Hitler and Stalin, and all the little Stalins in the soviet satelite states, were atheists-to their bones. Are we going to be dragged back to that? I hope not... all belief systems have inspired death, over enough time the deaths of millions of people, and millions more animals. I would rather have The Bible and some free, creative, approach to it than 'Mein Kampf' or 'The Communist Party Manifesto', or anything by Ayn Rand or the like.
The latter three all prize certainty over forgiveness...
By the way one typo, 1st line nineth paragraph 'I have talked at length' it should read...
Hitler was not an atheist. A common argument against atheism is that an atheistic government would produce Hitlers and Stalins. Hitler was a Catholic and he believed he was fulfilling gods will in exterminating the Jews, who killed Jesus.
I have corrected the typo.
Many people make the mistake of claiming that since the Bible speaks of real cities and real events in the past, that it is a history book and literally true. This is easily debunked by pointing out that there are many fictional books that are based upon real people, places, and events.
Answer this question...
Compare: a story about a magical tree with fruit that will make you smart, but will piss off god if you eat it. A talking snake made the girl eat it. The boy ate it too and now all of their descendants are in trouble forever...
To: a story about a boy who ended up with some magical beans which grew into a huge beanstalk and he climbed up and killed the giant living in the clouds and got all the treasure...
If you were just hearing these two stories for the first time, and were told that one was the literal truth and the other a fairytale, how would you determine which was which?
I would dare to say that you couldn't tell the difference. The reason: they are both fairytales.
Compare: a boy who can fly around and never grow up by thinking happy thoughts and getting sprinkled with magical fairy dust...
To: a man on a ship who hears voices in his head telling him to go to a certain city. He ran away and got on a ship. A big storm came up and the storm stopped as soon as he was thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale.
They both sound terribly like fairytales to me. Which one is true if you had never heard either one before?
Both stories are potential temptations to human hubris.
Because fairytales are stories aimed at children, they always have happy endings. Fairy stories are about infantalisation so Jack does climb the beanstalk, kill the giant and take the treasure, and endure and disprove the scorn of his mother for selling the household cow too cheaply as well, and all so painlessly! It would not be that difficult to add a sub-freudian sexual developement narrative to the story, and take it non-literally e.g. Jack defeats a distant alpha male, the giant, to become an alpha male himself and grow out of dependence on his Mother, an alpha female single parent. Thus Jack becomes a very eligible batchelor....
The story of, as you put it the magic fruit and talking snake is a story of temptation, of being tested, being told something and having to work out what you are told means. Working out what things and words mean is the oldest human story, and clearly you/we want to know what this or that means.
Expulsion for learning something which takes the shine off those who keep you is also a common theme, in life. Your disbelief in The Mormon Church echoes the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden, in some distant way. The expulsion does seem to cause you pain and anger, much like the the way Adam 'found the ground hard' and Eve 'will experience pain in childbirth'. What I draw from the story is that expulsion is survivable, and they did not die for experiencing pain. Nor do we.
I have been at a point where I was told stories and had to decide what was true and what was a lie. Spotting lies, by ommission or commission, does get people expelled from institutions. But the expulsion is proof of becoming a grown up and not needing the institution. For me disbelieving my parent's atheism was my growing up.
By the way there were a few typos in my last responce, I saw them after I had pressed 'publish'.
As for Hitler, I think he is not the sort of Catholic that The Catholic Church wants to own, not even at it's meanest. How many good catholics do you know of who took their own lives? Is it possible to be an atheist in government and to completely disown ideas about manifest destiny? Governments are about power and money, and we need to be smart about power and money, like good workmen with their tools, for those tools to not to use us. I have never yet seen an adequate answer to questions of how atheistic governments will learn and know how to use money and power wisely.
Any ideas about an atheistic tabula rasa, collective human clean slate, seem a touch fantastical to me.... ...but then again as you have read, fairy stories are quite powerful narratives...
Maybe this would have been a better set of "stories" to compare. Why is there evil in the world? It is:
A) Because Adam and Eve ate the magical fruit.
B) Because Pandora opened the mysterious box she was given.
One is a myth. One is the literal truth. Which is which?
Which creation story is true and which is a myth?
A) Jehovah formed man out of clay and breathed into him and he became a living being.
B) Prometheus formed man out of clay and breathed into him and he became a living being.
The Biblical account and the Greek account of the creation of man are nearly identical. Only the names are different. So why is one true and the other a complete myth?
I would disagree that my expulsion from Mormonism is like the fall of Adam and Eve. I walked away from the church voluntarially; I was not forced out. I was not excommunicated or even disfellowshipped.
I'm not a big follower of politics; maybe I should be. But IF our government is based on Christianity (which it is not) but if it was, as many people think, then I would expect to see much less corruption and lies.
Oddly enough, if a political candidate were to publically admit that he was an unbeliever, he most certainly would not be elected to his position. For some odd reason, this country wants all of its crooks to be believers. Go figure.
It is true that if a poltical candidate declared himself an unbeliever in public in the U.S.A then his chances of being elected would be reduced to practically zero. How much is that to do with their belief and how much is that to do with the reductiveness of the mass media? American media simply has no subtlelty about it. Political candidates in other 'christian' countries (with a small c it is an adjective) have their belief as a more private matter, without being dismissive of the sort of questions faith issues raise.
Now to the exam you have set me, first question Pandora vs Eve? My answer;I take neither literally and don't see the need to. Your question was about the origins of evil, and I don't think that taken as myth or taken literally either story 'explains' evil either as a concept or a history/narrative or as a reality. Perhaps those stories, both of them explain evil well enough for some people, I wish them well.
Promethius vs Jehovah? The question there for me to answer is what happens in the story for each character before the the creation of man from dust. Does Promethius create the heavens and the earth first? Where does Promethius put man in the narrative that is the course of world history? Read at whatever level you like Jehovah puts (hu)man(s) into a narrative in world history, a narrative which anyone can take or leave, but it is a narrative that is understandable.
Granted I did not know about how you left The Mormon Church, nor do I know how long have left it, what I can say is that if you tried to go back with your present beliefs you would recieve a certain amount of aggression for your opinions...
I am going to take a break from this dialogue, perhaps do a little light reading, for pleasure.
Preach on brother. I'm a former believer turned agnostic. Not prepared to say God doesn't exist. I don't know. But if he does exist he's certainly not the God the Christians shove down our throats.
I grew up in the Lutheran faith, and was a theology major in college. And it was my theological education that turned me into an agnostic. In my very first New Testament class, I learned that the Gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as most people believe. But by persons unknown up to 100 years after the time of Jesus. Hardly eyewitness testimony. It's hearsay, and wouldn't be accepted in any court of law. Funny that there's absolutely no evidence that Jesus even existed, except what's contained in the Bible.
The whole Christian religion is based on the belief that every human being descended from Adam and Eve, and that they sinned and passed their sinful nature on to the rest of us. And we're in need of a savior because of that. The entire Christian religion is based on that one story. If it's not true, then everything else falls apart. So if Adam and Eve were the first humans, where did Mrs. Cain come from? The answer is obvious. The story of Adam and Eve is nothing more than a fable, and there goes the whole original sin thing, and with it, the entire Christian worldview.
And why is it important? In a perfect world, I couldn't care less if people want to believe in fairy tales and superstitions. BUT, how much blood is being shed today because of religion? How many people have been considered second-class or even sub human because of religion? And how many people have had their rights trampled on because of religion?
Thanks for speaking out. We need more rational people like you.
Look, I don't want to be condescending, but you don't know what you're talking about. This is a good thing, because when you realize why you're wrong, you'll get the chance to change your mind.
For example:
Not only is there no need for millions of animals, but rain wasn't the primary source of water, but the 'fountains of the great deep,' indicating giant underground reservoirs of water released by volcanic and tectonic activity.
>>> Besides that, science has never found any evidence that there was once a global flood.
The entire geologic record is the evidence. Enormous amounts of evidence of catastrophic upheavals and rapid sedimentary deposition. What you think is proof of millions of years is the proof of a worldwide flood. If you look closely, you'll see it.
>>>>Why can't people see that the Bible is full of nonsense?
Because you're talking nonsense. I'm ignoring some of what you're saying because it's futile to engage. It's too wrong to bother explaining. I'll focus on a few simple things instead; it'll be more productive.
>>>>>Why can't they see that the magical apple being the source of all evil
It's not. You really don't understand.
>>>>>Why is one fairy tale staunchly defended by millions of people and the other just told as a bedtime story
Looks like you've missed something. Seems like it might not be a fairy tale after all--just you that thinks so.
>>>>But I can't prove that the Lord of the Right trilogy isn't true either.
Yes you can. It bears all the marks of a book of fiction, and is easily traced to its author, who will acknowledge that the story isn't true, and that it was designed as an attempt to provide Great Britain with some badly needed mythology that he felt its culture lacked.
You can't do that with the Bible. Wherever you go, people are serious about it, and none of the authors indicate that they were telling made-up stories.
>>>>>However, if you grew up in China and were introduced to the Bible for the first time as an adult, you would laugh while reading it.
Reality contradicts your assertion. Millions of adult Chinese have turned to Jesus amidst intense persecution, all in recent decades. The Chinese Church is thriving. They're not laughing at it, they're dying and getting thrown in jail for it.
>>>>To my readers who are believers, you have been told all your life to never question the Bible
Nope. 1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Test and examine all things, hold fast to that which is true."
I've always had a questioning nature, and when I began to really take the Bible's claims of inerrancy seriously, I changed a lot of what I believe.
>>>>>So what is the difference between your myth and someone elses? NOTHING! They are all made up stories.
Preconception. You're begging the question.
>>>>>Why don't you find your own truth instead of jumping in the collective boat of flow goers?
Oh, I have. But there's a subtle thing to be aware of here: is your truth true for everyone else? We should all find THE Truth through own effort, but whatever the Truth is will be the same for all people, even those who disagree, and the Truth should be able to explain this discrepancy also.
>>>>Believers, you not only have the burden of proof, you need to disprove all the thousands of other gods before you will have a valid case.
I've dropped a couple hints for you on a few other posts already. It's not hard to do. But you realize that you have to do so, too, before you can discount them, right? Otherwise, at most, you can only say that you don't think that god is the true God, but don't know for sure because you never bothered to look.
>>>>>Thousands of religions all over the world think they have the only truth.
Not entirely true. If that were the case, then you wouldn't have people combining African religions with Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, etc. It just wouldn't work unless a) those people don't believe what they claim to, or b) those religions are not exclusive. You take it for granted that all are. They are not. Only the Abrahamic faiths are exclusive, as far as I've been able to determine.
>>>>I can't wait for your god to get his vengance on me for my daring to question him.
Trust me, you don't. You'd rather receive His mercy and grace.
>>>>I also find it funny that I sarcastically claim that my god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is the true god and that he was consumed for me. All of you can immediately see how stupid that is and yet your god (who only has a different name) is completely and totally true.
Ridiculous. http://www.gotquestions.org/flying-spaghetti-monsterism.html
>>>>> If it was not for the radical beliefs of certain individuals, the attack on September 11, 2001, would have never happened.
Now you're doing it again. You've mocked Islam and the Greek pantheon, and then just arbitrarily threw Christianity in there with them by assigning the mockery to them, whereas you cannot validly do so, because what you've criticized of the other religions is inapplicable to Christianity.
>>>>> People think religion causes people to be nice to each other but it actually causes them to fight and kill each other.
Indeed. But God doesn't care about your religion. He calls religious people 'dogs,' in the Bible, metaphorically. He wants your love and a relationship with you, not your adherence to rituals and pagan violence.
>>>>I openly defy god and yet my life is just fine
Because He loves you and is giving you time to repent.
I like debate, and like attentive debate even more. I can be as bad for descending to an illogical rant as anyone else. I try to be quiet and brief (you may disagree about the latter) and most of all I like being cogent, however emotional I might be.
It seems to me that with the phrase 'I can't prove God does not exist, but you can't prove he does' you have produced a lose-lose argument where neither side, neither you nor whoever you argue with, can prove their proposition to the other. The proposition invites a stalemate.
The weakness here is the test of proof. It would be interesting, and to me more positive, and definitive, for me to ask; What can you prove? And for you to ask of others the same, positive proof. My I offer my first proof?
My civility and capacity for logical thought through what I have written here...
Yours, hoping for more light than heat in debate, Malcolm Walker
Yes, I admit that it does result in a stalemate. But that is good... It seems that I have "god" by the balls. I mean, a stalemate with god should be considered a great victory seeing as how he is all knowing, all powerful, etc. If I can't beat him, at least I'm his equal! LOL
No, in reality, the only thing I can't beat is the nonsensical thinking out of religious people. They are convinced that god is real and everything that happen in life is proof of it.
My question in return, which this post was trying to bring out is this: If something good happened to you and you believe it is proof of god, how do you know it wasn't Zeus, Appollo, Thor, Ra, Isis, or one of thousands of other gods worshipped in human history?
You don't. (Because all those gods are false. Only YOUR god is the true one, right?)
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