[PLUG-TALK] Religion is not bad...
wes
plug at the-wes.com
Sat Oct 31 18:45:00 UTC 2009
On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Michael Robinson <plug_1 at robinson-west.com
> wrote:
> Wes, no Christian church is engaged in a conspiracy to cover
> up the Truth.
I don't believe that.
You have provided no evidence for this.
Again, I have provided precisely the same amount of evidence for my claims,
as you have for yours.
Insisting
> that telling you about miracles whether they be in the bible or
> not is bull, because there was a conspiracy to get me to believe them,
> that is an egregious insult.
No more insulting than you have been for me refusing to believe that they
happened.
What makes you think that the 1000s of
> miracles since the dawn of Christianity are all fake?
I believe they are all fake, because they ARE fake (or at least,
misinterpreted).
What makes you
> think that a church could maintain a following of at least 1 in 4
> Americans or 75m+ people if it is lying to them and the rest of it's
> members around the world?
The most successful tactic is to get to them young. Children will believe
anything.
I guess you don't think much of peoples'
> ability to see through lies.
Especially when the lies start young.
You can fool some people some of the
> time, but not all of the people all the time.
>
This is true. And the number of people fooled by organized religion is
dwindling every day.
There is no advantage to rejecting God nor is there any advantage
> to believing that God doesn't care about you.
Wrong. Believing in God carries many disadvantages. As does not believing in
God.
The value of human
> life is that humanity is made in God's image and all humans have
> an opportunity to live forever.
If that's the only value you see in your life, that's your problem.
That is the basis for human
> rights.
I don't follow.
God is perfect.
If that were true, you would not have to feel the need to rush to His
defense every time He is questioned.
Man is made to have a relationship
> with God, a relationship that was broken in the garden of Eden.
>
I doubt that. Maybe that's where the theism vs. atheism starts to break
down: if we did evolve, how could there have been a "first" man and woman?
The virgin Mary is the new Eve.
"New Eve" ??? huh?
She alone was conceived without
> sin, which is why one doesn't talk about sin when they talk about
> Mary.
Whatever.
Mary is the spiritual mother of humanity because her fiat,
> her yes to being the mother of Jesus, opened the gates of heaven.
>
Why?
Through Mary's yes and Christian baptism, it is possible to get
> into heaven.
>
'K. You go ahead. I'll catch up.
I imagine that atheists can get to heaven, but not easily. Baptism
> is necessary to get into heaven. There is baptism of desire and
> God being just He will certainly make an exception for those atheists
> who don't know any better that want heaven.
You said God will "make Himself known." How can anyone make an excuse that
they didn't know any better?
That said, Christians
> have an obligation to pray for their fellow Man who is an atheist
> or otherwise lost. Atheists are certainly not the only ones in
> trouble when it comes to reaching heaven, but God is just and
> compassionate. He does reach into hearts and He certainly will
> make exceptions for people who miss getting baptized that still
> want heaven.
>
Good then.
Something bugs me, some comment was made about their being quotas
> for heaven.
The comment was about quotas for converting people. Your quota, not heaven's
or God's.
I reject that belief which I believe is Buddhist.
>
Then you disagree with at least 1/6th of the world's population.
There is no reincarnation for humanity, only eternal life,
> purgatory, or eternal punishment.
>
If you say so. I surely would not make such presumptions.
Study this prayer:
>
> "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you."
>
> "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb
> Jesus."
>
> "Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of
> our death, amen."
>
> A couple of hints, a couple of facts. Amen means I believe.
>
Amen means "I believe it's true." It's about factual belief, not spiritual
belief. Another example of the church stealing meaning from words.
Jesus is God is the Father is the Holy Spirit. It doesn't make
> sense that God is three persons in one except to say that one
> should not limit God.
No one cares.
Mary is without sin and Jesus' mother,
> so she has the ear of Jesus in a way that noone else does.
>
She's dead. He's dead. What does it matter?
Honor your father and mother is a Jewish commandment that Jesus
> obeyed and still to this day obeys.
Plenty of nonreligious people do this without having to me commandmented to
do it.
Fact, the Jews in Jesus'
> time were looking for a savior, a redeemer.
They were just as wrong as you are.
Fact, Judas
> betrayed Jesus thinking that Jesus would incite a rebellion
> and overthrow the Roman rulers.
Plausible.
Fact, Judas committed suicide.
>
If the above is true, this would be unsurprising.
Fact, Judas is in hell.
If the above is true, he was an idiot. I'd send him to hell too, if I were
God.
"It would have been better if he had
> never been born" (Jesus Christ's lament concerning Judas).
> Fact, the Jewish high priests in Jesus' time were predominantly
> power hungry and corrupt.
The same is true today, of most of Jewish and Christian and Islamic high
officials.
Fact, Herod was nuts and he did have
> children killed in an attempt to keep Jesus from becoming a King.
>
That does sound nuts to me, if it happened.
Fact, the old testament of the bible is a foreshadowing of the
> events in the new testament.
'K.
Fact, Jesus knew this and it is
> clear that He did if you read the new testament carefully.
>
Carefully as in, "only if you understand the words in a specific way, which
only a religious zealot can explain."
Fact, Mary has appeared in many places around the globe at
> different times.
The "fact" here is that a few people claim that Mary has appeared in a few
places around the globe a few times.
These places include Fatima, Medjugore,
> Japan, Guadalupe, Lourdes...
Yes, those are some examples of places where people claim to have seen Mary
or have seen some other Mary-related miracle occur.
The miracle of the sun in
> Medjugore is real and probably still happening.
Either it's not real, or it's not a miracle. You want to tell me that Aurora
Borealis is a miracle too? You wouldn't be the first to think that if you
did. But those people were eventually disproven, just as you will be
eventually.
Fact, there
> are people who have seen Mary that are so intensively
> peaceful.
The "fact" is that there are intensely peaceful people who claim to have
seen Mary.
Look at Medjugore where the children who saw Mary
> were treated horribly by the communist regime. The priest
> the children spoke to even got tortured.
That's awful. But it's not a miracle.
Fact, there is an
> incorruptible saint near Guadalupe.
Something might be going on, but I am unconvinced it's anything divine.
The fact is, there is
> evidence of God's existence and work in the world today right
> now.
The fact is, there are tons of things we can't readily explain going on
which the church is trying to subvert into evidence of God's existence, in
an effort to retain their power base.
How can a being that is more powerful than us and
> considerate to us be unimportant to us?
>
Because He doesn't affect our everyday lives. If He does exist, I can't
believe He would want us to waste our time worrying about His comfort. He
would just want to see what we come up with next.
I won't read secular humanist propaganda.
Why should anyone read religious propaganda? Is the foundation of your faith
so weak that you can't stand to rationally and logically compare it to other
points of view? What are you afraid of, Michael?
It is crap.
No, it isn't.
People
> prayed for the fall of atheistic communism and it happened in
> Russia.
Correlation is not causation. A lot of other things happened in Russia.
I doubt that Russians are predominantly religious these
> days, but give them some time and I'll certain that that will
> change.
>
It may change. It may not. They seem to be doing pretty well without it for
the time being.
-wes
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