An Open Letter to All Young Christians - Please Convince Me.

You are attacking mine and many other's faith. Why?
(If you want me to convert to this stupid evolution thing, I won't)

 

As a Pastafarian, I say believe what you shall and don't force it on others. If you believe in God, splendid! If you don't, then that's also fine!

All hail the giant spaghetti monster

 

yea god damn u stupid evolution
i hate u science

 

Evolution is real. *cough cough*.

 

Ayyy, there's no way I'm reading all of this, but here's my point of view.
Since you specifically mentioned the bible, over the the years its been translated many times, thus it's not completely accurate, so it would be silly to put your faith in it, it's written in a way where if you take it too literally it will sound like bogus so often the people who follow it claim that it shouldn't be taken literally, that you should somehow see it as a metaphor.
I understand people believing in some kind of almighty being, but not in the form we imagine it, if anything, hundreds of years from now, Christianity and every major religion today will be nothing more than mythology, the whole reason religion was created in the first place was so that people thought they had somewhat of a valid argument on how nature works, and the more we discover about our universe, the more religion will seize to exist.

 

He is not attacking your faith he is questioning why you believe in it. Why? Why is something that is proven, stupid, while something that has no evidence to support it fact to you? Please explain your reasoning. I would really like to hear it.

 

To make this clear, I'm attacking ideas, not people. No idea should be immune from criticism. Do you think otherwise? Isn't that exactly what 'Je Suis Charlie' was all about? Or did you oppose the cartoonists because "They attacked that persons faith!". Do you think people should have the right to post cartoons mocking a set of ideas?

If I'm wrong about the idea of a god, I'd like to be proven wrong. That goes for anything really. I explicitly stated in my OP that this thread is mainly to question Christians on what they believe, and for people to question what I believe too. We can't learn or improve ourselves if some ideas are immune from criticism.

Also, if your defense of an idea is that we shouldn't critique it, what does that say about the idea? I WANT people to scrutinise ideas, even Evolution. Because the more you examine it, the deeper you look into it and the more you try to pick it apart? The brighter the light should shine on the truth. This is what Science stands for. Self-correction, always being open to new ideas, with no idea having any special treatment.

Also, do I get to create a racist, xenophobic, homophobic religion tomorrow? When people pull me up on my racist, xenophobic and homophobic beliefs, is...

"Why are you attacking my faith?"

It's a non-response. The ideas should be able to stand up for themselves. If they don't, we change. We'll never better ourselves or filter bad ideas if some of them are shielded from scrutiny.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 15, 2015, Original Post Date: Feb 15, 2015 ---

That's why I said at the bottom of the post, that I'd love it if people only tackled one point. Any change to engage in a discussion, would be great.

I'm not quite sure what your post is addressing, to be honest. Just that religion seems man-made to you, and that you think it's understandable for people to believe in a deity of some sort. Sure, I can get behind that. But there's not a lot for me to sink my teeth into, really? (Though I appreciate the reply, obviously!)

Just like I did with another poster, let's keep it short then. Are you a Theist? If so, what do you believe and why? Or what problems do you have with Atheists/Atheism?

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 15, 2015 ---

@Miro995

@monkeyhead1999

Here's one for you guys then. As a cheeky aside.

If I truly believed in a literal Heaven and Hell, and that non-christians or non-believers were sent there? I'd spend every waking minute trying to convince people I loved (heck, even strangers) of the word of god, so they didn't have to suffer in a place of eternal torture. I'd do EVERYthing I possibly could to stop people from being sent to this horrific place. Why don't you guys feel the same?

Also, if you believed in a Heaven, why do you act like you don't? Why wear a seat-belt, get vaccinations or look both ways when crossing the street? Isn't your life merely a place to wipe your feet compared to the paradise with God that awaits you upon your death? Again, if I thought an eternal-afterlife with my all-loving all-powerful creator awaited me, I wouldn't care much for this life, if at all.

If I believed in the power of prayer, I wouldn't go to a hospital, I'd go to church for faith-healing.

I'd never mourn the death of a fellow Christian. I'd be ecstatic that they've gone to a better place.

I'd never rely on vaccinations, as they purport to have been built on the study of macro-evolution.

You promote self-preservation, you get sad when loved ones pass away, you accept evolution and science when it comes to your health.

So how much do you really believe in the word of God?

 

Heh Editson is back.

 

I myself don't believe in god and I'm not a religious person, but I'm not denying the possibility that I might be wrong. To answer the why part, I can't tell you really, ever since I was a little kid I realized that those claims people make about the afterlife and what not are too far fetched and I couldn't believe something blindly, also the fact that the church is corrupt didn't help me very much either. And for your last question, no I don't have any problems with atheist, the only problem I have are people trying to force their beliefs down other peoples throat, I will admit religion is good for one thing thought, it gives you faith, for some it gives them a meaning in life, it gives compassion, but at the end of the day, for me at least, the negatives outweigh the positives.

 

KAPPA

 

I myself don't believe in god and I'm not a religious person, but I'm not denying the possibility that I might be wrong.

So you're an Atheist then. This isn't meant to sound as nasty as it may come across, but could we create another thread, if you're not a Theist? There's already so much to discuss here, and it's already degenerating into more of a tumblr meme-fest, than an on-topic discussion.

And for your last question, no I don't have any problems with atheist, the only problem I have are people trying to force their beliefs down other peoples throat,

Who's ramming? Maybe this wasn't a slight jab at me, but this is a public forum after all. Everyone that comments is involved in a consensual conversation. If wanting all ideas to be open to criticism and scrutiny is deemed as 'Forcing my beliefs down someone elses throat', then I have no idea what a productive free and open discussion would look like. It feels similar to Christians that argue homosexuality is being pushed down their throat, because of gay marriage. No-one's forcing you to marry someone of the same-sex, just as I'm not forcing anyone to participate in this discussion, or change their opinion on anything.

"I will admit religion is good for one thing though, it gives you faith. For some it gives them a meaning in life, it gives compassion."

"I realized that those claims people make about the afterlife and what not, are too far-fetched. I couldn't believe something blindly."

Faith, is almost certainly not a virtue. Can anyone give me an example of a claim, where "Faith" cannot be used as 'justification' for believing it? I could take ANYthing on faith, literally anything. I'll revert back to a point I made earlier.

"3) Why is believing something for which you have no good evidence for, a good thing? Isn't that just gullibility? Why is it a good idea to use logic, reason, evidence AMAP in our lives, but when it comes to "The Big Question", we're supposed to suspend all critical thinking to believe in a god?"

Also, I don't think a 'meaning to life' or 'compassion' are exclusive to religion or religious values. You don't have to be religious to have those things.

 

I personally have doubts about Catholicism and yesterday I decided not to go to a church, that had brought in politics to its mass. They literally told us not to vote for a "Right to Death" bill. Which, it may be anti-Catholic, but I just really didn't like that.

And I got grounded for it :/

THAT's what I believe is wrong.

My doubts are mainly founded upon my idea that religion was created to explain the things we couldn't comprehend at the time. Because, we all know, we are afraid of the unknown, so religion was created as a sort of soothing agent for the human race. That's just my idea, and it doesn't necessarily have any proof.

 

An Atheist will read thousands of scientific books, and say that they don't know everything.
A Christian will half-a** read one book, and claim to know it all.

You can't reason with religious people.
If they were reasonable, they wouldn't be religious.

It doesn't matter that there are 17 versions of the bible.
It doesn't matter that the concept of Hell was added way after the fact.
They simply don't care.
They'll kill people over "the word of God," even though their Bible plainly says "King James Version" on the front of it.
They aren't the brightest group of people..

 

Stop. This is not only untrue, but completely unacceptable behaviour in a public forum.

Believing in something stupid, doesn't make you a stupid person. There are scientists that have contributed more to human knowledge than you or I could ever dream to, that believe the earth is <10,000yrs old. If they were to take an IQ test, they'd crush us. Blanket statements like "You can't reason with religious people" not only shut down the conversation (as you've just degenerated into childish name-calling tactics), but it's patently false too. How about the millions that have deconverted from their religion? How come they can make informed, reasoned decisions in other aspects of their life?

It's akin to saying something like...

"You can't teach morals/our law to a criminal. If they were moral people/knew our laws, they wouldn't be in jail in the first place."

It's absurd. There is SO much wrong with ^that^ statement. As there is with yours.

 

Yes. This is much more acceptable.

 

(Un)fortunately for religious people, the good or bad deeds of a religion have nothing to do with whether a god exists. We could be here all day discussing the good and bad things done in the Catholic church. Heck, even Hitler was a Catholic. But it has absolutely no bearing on whether the Catholic god exists. (which is why you'll almost never see an Atheist use it as evidence against Catholics). Plus, 'Euthanasia' is such a huge topic that it probably deserves its own thread.

Though I loved your contribution to the thread, I'd rather get into what you believe and why. You said you had doubts, what are they? Do you still believe in a god? If so, why? If not, why not? Do you have any questions about Science or Atheism that you're curious about?

 

Well, I think that those really down to earth Christians, would have a large amount of evidence to show that "God" exists. I come from a large, Catholic family, but I was baptized Lutheran. I go to church every Sunday, etc. I was raised on the belief that "God" will rise again and come back to roam the earth. I am practically forced to believe in "God". But I don't really believe in anything, I don't believe in evolution, because us forming from monkeys? If we were formed from monkeys, we would be walking out of the jungle, not popping out of our mothers, like what if monkeys formed from us? I don't believe in God either. I mean, if God formed the world, there would be cold, hard, facts to prove it, not a book. We are taught that everything is made out of Atoms, and cells, ect. So if God made the earth, he made atoms, and wheres the atom or cell that proves he made it? Of course there still the question, where did the earth come from then? Where did the first human come from? Where do we go to when we die? I honestly believe questions like that are better to be unanswered. We don't know what else is out there, in the galaxies and galaxies beyond those. We could have been created by some species that may never show their face on earth. Most of us don't believe in aliens, because we haven't had any proof that they exist, but another question is, that is better left unanswered, What is out there?

 

I kinda want to reply to this thread, but I don't know if I'm its intended audience.

 

Good for you. Your decisions should be influenced by your thoughts and your opinions, not on a book written thousands of years ago when people knew nothing about the world.