What are all the reasons you don’t believe in Jesus?
This topic contains 94 replies, has 15 voices, and was last updated by Glen D 5 years, 4 months ago.
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March 18, 2019 at 10:40 pm #25611
You splendidly avoided Reg’s question with word soup. He didn’t ask you if it’s relevant…he straight out asked you if Jesus was the son of God…that the Bible comes from his direct words. It’s very simple to say yes or no…or a not-sure with a good explanation. We don’t care about the truth about Jesus’s existence cause we don’t have the means to confirm it and have skanky evidence. We want to know your beliefs. From my point of view you’ve slowly become a pseudo-Christian. I’m simply curious if the “belief line” has been crossed. Could you try and answer Reg’s questions?
March 19, 2019 at 8:35 am #25612I don’t believe in God. However, if “God’s way” is long term cooperative thriving, then Jesus was a personification of that, so it’s not a stretch for Christians to say that Jesus was the son of God.
March 19, 2019 at 1:52 pm #25613It’s not a stretch for Christians to say that Jesus was the son of God, Simon, it’s the absolute core basic tenet of their faith. It’s what ‘Christian’ means. It means you believe that Jesus was the Christ who is the son of God. Literally that.
March 19, 2019 at 1:59 pm #25614God’s way is NOT long term cooperation. The fundamental lesson to the core is that you must love God, believe in him, follow his commandments, agree with what he does OR ELSE. Jesus said some nice stuff. Cooperation is a value sometimes mentioned. It contrasts with submitting, aquiesing, blind faith and doing what you’re told which is all mentioned Much much much more in the Bible (almost exclusively in the old testament and much more than cooperation. Some people are blind to the endless threats in the Bible, the fact that they are unquestionable commandments and cannot read the text that unambiguously directly clearly says so. How many times do you have to be threatened with vicious torture before you admit that unquestioning belief and submission is as essential a part of God as anything else?
Simon…have you read the Bible…cover to cover? Have you read it recently?
March 19, 2019 at 2:50 pm #25615@strega – all I’m saying is that for Christians, it adds up to say that.
@davis – those mechanisms – enforced God-believing, and threatening people with eternal torture, originated in the need to enforce long term cooperation, hopefully leading to thriving, although as we know, this often hasn’t worked out.
I haven’t ever read the Bible cover to cover.
March 21, 2019 at 9:04 pm #25627Simon, I think morality can only be effective when it founded in and grounded in sociology without any reference to theology.
March 22, 2019 at 7:50 pm #25633But the theological version can’t be dismissed at useless, as most of the essential components are in place. Even if the origin of those components seems bogus to us (God etc.), that might not matter as long as the arrangement is effective, which I think it is, reasonably. But without civil society, we have the lawless chaos of medieval Britain.
It seems that religion functions best – i.e. its best sides can flourish, and its worse sides can be checked – within a strong civil society and institutions (rule of law, democracy, human rights legislation).
March 22, 2019 at 10:09 pm #25634I disagree with almost all of that Simon. If I could be offended by other peoples’ opinions I would be offended by the apparent assumption (as I read it) that in order to have a civil society we need the basics of religion or that if it was an atheistic based society lawlessness and chaos would ensue.
When it comes to the value of theology I always think of the quote by Thomas Paine in the Age of Reason:
“The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.”
“It seems that religion functions best – i.e. its best sides can flourish, and its worse sides can be checked – within a strong civil society and institutions (rule of law, democracy, human rights legislation).”
For centuries when religion was all powerful and dominant and controlled governments and all places of learning it resisted any secular interference. Its resistance to scientific advances, often by murdering scientists as heretics or jailing them for years (I can furnish several examples from the last 1500 years) was justified by the use of ecclesiastical and theological derived bullshit for their vile behaviors. Ethiopia, one of the first Christian nations was the last to get rid of slavery and the Christian Church never shuts up bragging about its role in ending it. Again I can give several other examples of the corruption of human rights and values that lie firmly at the feet of religion and of the religious. So I do dismiss it as “useless” without even blinking. Useless to the point of it being a seeping carbuncle on the back of societies whose citizens know that we have evolved past needing religion for anything.
March 22, 2019 at 11:24 pm #25635I’m saying that religion also needs secular institutions in order to form a complete society (that incorporates religion, such as the UK or US).
March 23, 2019 at 4:20 am #25636Simon, why do we need religion?
Won’t things be a bit better without it?
Why the veneration of Jesus?
March 24, 2019 at 12:51 am #25637I’m saying that religion also needs secular institutions in order to form a complete society (that incorporates religion, such as the UK or US).
God that is such bullshit. If by complete society you mean ones that are far more likely to be exclusive, non-progressive, restrictive and limiting then yeah, religious countries are certainly a complete society. When I look at the worlds most secular countries with the fewest religious people which are also democratic, Denmark, Canada, Sweden, Luxembourg etc. I see the countries of the world with the highest level of equality, kind moral treatment of one person to another, low crime rates, high rates of happiness, high standard of living, strong education, opportunities to “thrive” via free education and opportunities in the work industry, extremely generous social programs including heath care, aid for the unemployed, disabled, homeless, unfortunate, sick etc. In fact, on just about every single count I can imagine, these secular and non-religious countries beat the shit out of the US and the UK. What is it exactly that these countries lack to be complete. What is it that secular alternatives lack? Please be very specific and explain why these things are necessary for a society (not nice or convenient…but NECESSARY).
I look at Denmark and Luxembourg and Canada and see some of the most civil, moral, fair, kind, “thriving”, opportunistic, generous, culturally rich and happiest places on Earth. I find it nothing short of shocking that there is something that makes them less complete than say Poland or Arkansas.
March 24, 2019 at 1:21 am #25638Jesus must be real. I mean why else would a vampire be afraid of a crucifix or holy water if Jesus was not real? They are not nearly as afraid of garlic but it still irks them and we know garlic is real.
So take that atheist!! To celebrate this theological victory I shall have a little bite to drink…..
March 24, 2019 at 10:57 pm #25642I’m saying that religion also needs secular institutions in order to form a complete society (that incorporates religion, such as the UK or US).
In the political sense of the word “Secularism” does not mean anti-religious. A person can be a Catholic or an Evangelical and still want a secular society. Secularism means that State does not favor any particular religion over any other religion or over the non-religious. The State remains an independent referee and strives to ensure all citizens are not discriminated against by any religious belief.
In many countries the religious use the word “secularism” as they do the word “atheist” as if it was a term of derision. That is because they want to be able to ignore certain Laws when it suits them so they can discriminate legally as they have done for centuries. They see attempts by secularists to achieve human equality rights as an attack on their religious beliefs. The secular State should allow for all people to have religions freedoms but not at the expense of those that do not hold those same beliefs. Strange as it may sound coming from my corner but I actively support Evangelical and Muslims groups in Ireland to be treated equally by the State when they are discriminated against by Catholics and Catholic inspired laws, as I as an atheist am also discriminated against.
I do not want any religion to have a say in any government. They can all get the f**k right off the steps. They have nothing to offer just as they had nothing 400 years ago after 1500 years of their darkness, degradation of human rights, abuse of children, control of education, persecution of women, including burning over 100,000 of them in 700 years, the murder of “heretics”, their control of politics, their support and approval of the serfdom of the “peasant class”, their hatred of scientific advances when their assumed power started to decline. All of this was done by Christians at the expense of anyone not 100% supportive of them and all done on the authority of the Bible and in the name of Jesus.
As members of modern mature democratic societies we need nothing from any religion. It has nothing of value to offer us.
March 25, 2019 at 8:37 am #25643In the UK, religion has become mainly toothless. What is left now, I find quite nice.
March 25, 2019 at 8:44 am #25644Simon, why do we need religion?
That’s a big question. It’s good not to neglect the spiritual side of life, and religion, at least in promoting long term cooperative thriving, is one way to address this.
Won’t things be a bit better without it?
Things are better once religion is toothless in my opinion (i.e. no longer has the capacity to cause harm).
Why the veneration of Jesus?
Jesus showed people the right way (in some ways) to live, and got himself killed for it.
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