Devil's advocate (religious debate, proceed with caution)

Started by: Exile | Replies: 220 | Views: 13,074

xLycanx
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Jun 23, 2012 1:34 AM #682933
Quote from Fusion
So you believe that if someone never had a chance to believe in the Christian God, and was a good person their entire life, they are going to suffer unimaginable torture in Hell for all eternity, and deserve it?


God will still judge you based on the laws He set so you wont necessarily go to hell. even if you were not given a chance to believe in God, once you die you can still repent and ask for forgiveness.
raynmetal

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Jun 23, 2012 1:48 AM #682939
Quote from xLycanx
God will still judge you based on the laws He set so you wont necessarily go to hell. even if you were not given a chance to believe in God, once you die you can still repent and ask for forgiveness.


Then, technically, it would be more merciful of Christians to keep it to themselves, wouldn't it?

Also, don't you find it odd that we get punished simply for being the way He (assuming he exists at all) made us? Seems ever so slightly sadistic, doesn't it?
Fusion
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Jun 23, 2012 2:06 AM #682949
Quote from xLycanx
God will still judge you based on the laws He set so you wont necessarily go to hell. even if you were not given a chance to believe in God, once you die you can still repent and ask for forgiveness.

What do you mean, once you die you can still repent? Do you mean that if you die never experiencing God, your spirit will ascend to the gates of heaven and if you say 'yes I believe in God' then you get in?
xLycanx
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Jun 23, 2012 2:17 AM #682953
Quote from Fusion
So you believe that if someone never had a chance to believe in the Christian God, and was a good person their entire life, they are going to suffer unimaginable torture in Hell for all eternity, and deserve it?


God will still judge you based on the laws He set so you wont necessarily go to hell. even if you were not given a chance to believe in God, once you die you can still repent and ask for forgiveness.



Quote from N-M-E
Here's why I'm an atheist:
1. Think about the how long man has existed. If Christianity began about 2000 years ago, they what happened to all the people before that who were never introduced to it? Did God just send all of mankind up until around when Jesus started preaching to hell? It must be crowded to the brim then.Christianity was created when Jesus died on teh cross for our sins so it is a new covenant with God and his people, everything before that were previous ways to get into heaven like the ten commandments, and just worshipping God. So no.

2. To believe in Christianity you must believe in some type of soul, which is sent to the after life. This soul is necessary for life to... well... be alive. I simply define being alive as the function of your cells. Dying is just when the cells malfunction and start to decompose and the atoms are recycled back into the Earth.Spiritual Body + Physical Body (cells) = You

3. There have been HUGE amounts of religion ever since man started asking questions. Each of the believers of these religions truly thought that they had found the right answer. But eventually the religions died out. What makes Christianity and Islam or any other religion out there any different. In 1000 to 2000 years these will be gone too. And they increasing amount of scientific information we are discovering is becoming more readily available to the public. Now that we have access to actual answers for some of the once baffling questions we no longer have to turn to wild guesses. Things happen for a reason beyond our understanding, why do you think we dont know for sure why we were created, or how everything started. God will reveal to us what he wants to be revealed in time.

4. Animals. If animals are alive than that would mean that they would have to have souls too. But to animals believe in god? some animals don't even have the ability to think, much less believe in a god. Do these animals get sent to hell?In the bible it says Man has dominion over beast. So animals dont have human spiritual souls. Animals do think, Dogs sit when their owners tell them to sit, a lion searches for its prey when it is hungry and knows it has to feed its family. But they are merely tools God gave us for our Survival. We dont feed ourselves to animals do we?

5. I think that some people are religious because they don't believe that something so complex and intelligent as human life could not be created by chance. There had to be some sort or intelligent being who built them. There are approximately 160 billion planets in our galaxy alone but we have only found 1 with life on it, ours. Now that means that Earth is extremely lucky (or cursed, you decide). That show's that the chance for life was actually extremely small. I don't think that those probabilities suggest any being actively working to populate the universe. And if so, why only chose Earth?1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

God created us (humans) in His image, and we are one of a kind like our planet, specifically made for us. Where do we see another human being from a different planet identical to ours


6. I also think that some people believe because they want to have some kind of purpose. But according to the theory accepted today, life started all because of an accident. I'm more inclined to go with the scientists' opinion due to the fact that it was reached after countless tests and retests. I also don't mind the fact that I have no purpose.I find it disturbing that you'll be fine that you are an accident. God has a plan, and we are all a part of that plan whether you like and accept it or not. having a purpose for something makes more sense that it being accidental. so time, the universe, galaxies, stars, planets were created by accident? oops that exploded?

7. There is way too much suffering going on in this world today. All of these 3rd world countries with people dying of starvation. Wars, disease, natural disasters. Would a god that loves mankind do something to help?A father must allow his child to go through hardships and suffering so that they can learn and be able to strive on their own, but He will always have your back and catch you when you fall. There is alot of Evil in the world and we are here to conquer it and in the end be ultimately be rewarded when we finish through

8. When believing in a religion, all logic that you have been taught since kindergarten has to be tossed out the window. You have to believe in something with absolutely no evidence to back it up, while men in suits with PhD's are going around disproving those beliefs every day. The bible has loads of contradictions and so do the arguments of believers when talking about god.All logic isnt tossed out the window just because you believe in God. When all odds are against the the obvious, you still act on faith that God was the center of the big bang, that evolution is a natural cause in life, that God made you complex and extraordinary. logic isnt thrown away. Whatever we discover, is what God has unveiled to us.

9. All religious texts were written by MEN, and everyone knows that they were written by MEN. The bible has been altered over 200 times, and around its creation, there were several hundred "books" left out. How can this be a legitimate source? How can you say an incomplete, extensively altered book written by men is the absolute word of god?I bet you still write reports for school using wikipedia as one of your source. I dont read the bible a whole lot. These things weren't written in the bible by a bunch of illuminati devil worshipers? They were written by God loving people who knew how to live in the harsh society of their time and the rules of their lands and the wars they've fought. Some of these men were inspired by the teachings of God's one and only Son, Jesus Christ, and were Jesus' apostles who had front row seats to his teachings and followed his ways.


Well.. thats your own choice and based on what you said, the bold is why i feel youre wrong. believe what you wants. But even when the day comes that i see some hard core evidence that i cant even respond to, i will still die a christian.

AND IF I DIE TODAY. IT'D BE A HOLIDAY~
-LilWayne

Edit: @Fusion - one does not simply Go straight to heaven. Think of a court room. you get judged, then you hear your verdict. God is a merciful God, he is understanding of all circumstances

@Raynmental - I dont understand your question sorry :@
Zed
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Jun 23, 2012 7:37 AM #683040
I'm not going to copy and paste all your responses so we'll do this by number.

1. Even the 10 commandments are pretty new. Monotheistic religion and the earliest of your prophets were about 4000-6000 years ago. That still leaves a few million years of humans with no guidance. Why wouldn't God appear earlier?

2. Do you know what you mean when you say "spiritual body"? A word is meaningless without an idea to go with it, and I don't think you have any idea what a "spiritual body" is meant to be.

3. You didn't answer him at all.

4. Are you rejecting evolution here? If not, at what point did mankind get their souls upgraded?

5. Again, you didn't answer him, although I'm not sure this was an especially good point to begin with.

6. Why does having a purpose make more sense than being an accident? Look out the window. Why is that tree there rather than three feet to the left? Unless it was done by a meticulous landscape architect, it has a position at random. Do you not see how ridiculous it sounds to say that God wanted it exactly in that position? So, 99.999% of the goings on in this universe are pointless. What makes you different? And are you so insecure that you would want to be different?

7. "He will always catch you when you fall". Boy, it sure is lucky God stepped in and stopped the holocaust before it did any real damage, right?

8. I'm just going to pull up your conclusion here: "But even when the day comes that i see some hard core evidence that i cant even respond to, i will still die a christian". If that's not choosing to fly in the face of logic and reason, I don't know what is.

9. Earlier you quoted Genesis. Who was there watching when that happened? But you've already said you don't believe the stuff from that book, so we'll bypass it and get to the bit where some of the books are written by people who were there with Jesus. That is, what, four books? And the Bible is how long? Why do people pay attention to any to any of the others? Also, regarding the books not being written by illuminati devil-worshippers, technically true but 95% of the original Bible was cut out by Emperor Constantine when he was looking for a new religion for the Roman Empire. Only the bits that fit with his political motives survive.
raynmetal

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Jun 23, 2012 8:48 AM #683063
@xlycanx: I mean that if someone lives their life according to their own set of morals, and never learn about Christianity, then they still have a good shot at heaven. If someone knows about Christianity, yet still flouts it's rules, they're more likely to go to hell. Ignorance is bliss, in this case.
For the other one, I mean if all humans were designed and created a certain way(as you seem to be assuming), and some of the inborn traits humans have are curiosity and lust, we can't exactly be faulted and sent to hell for that.
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Jun 23, 2012 9:38 AM #683080
I wasn't trying to argue here which is why I didn't go into much detail. Exilement made this thread because he wanted to know what atheists believe (or don't believe) any why. My post was more personally based than made for debate :|
Automaton
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Jun 23, 2012 10:05 AM #683092
Quote from N-M-E
I wasn't trying to argue here which is why I didn't go into much detail. Exilement made this thread because he wanted to know what atheists believe (or don't believe) any why. My post was more personally based than made for debate :|

Why hold beliefs if you don't feel strongly enough about them to defend them?
frNME
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Jun 23, 2012 3:27 PM #683217
Just because you believe something doesn't mean that you're willing to debate every time someone challenges them.
xLycanx
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Jun 23, 2012 4:23 PM #683246
@raynmental - Well, you would still have to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. I recently learned from one of my church services that if you live a moral life, you will still be awarded with a prosperous life or whatever God planned for you, but if you continue to be immoral and do bad things, bad things will continue to happen. its kinda like Karma. But at the end of the day, it comes down to whether you accepted Jesus or not and you stayed faithful to God (Revelation 2:10 - Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life) and ya we were practically program with this curiosity and lust and we wont go to hell for it, but if it comes to the point that when we take this curiosity and lust so far that we shun and turn our back on our own creator and deny Him.

And no im not rejecting evolution...

Lol and the Jews did basically have Jesus killed. God doesnt just stop everything. its like free will, he will let humanity run its course bla bla but he allows evil to take place like the holocaust. (again - REvalation2:10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life) Lol at the dark ages.


So im going to leave it at that and you guys can do your thing ima just go play some xbox...

My Bad i guess i was going off-topic i guess this was only meant for the athiests beliefs n such.

Peace Brothers!
Mikematic
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Jun 23, 2012 4:46 PM #683254
I don't see what the point in all this arguing, and debating is. I mean it's not going to accomplish much, besides hurt feelings, and long taught, and different ways of thinking.
I mean I doubt all this debating is going to make anyone change there ways, its not there fault, I mean it's just how they were brought up. The best that I as a catholic. Is pray. And you can say anything you want, but you cant take away my power to pray. So that's what I do for all my fellow animating peers who were brought up in a different way. Every time I go to church. So you can go to sleep knowing, that there's at least one dude who cares out there.
Exile
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Jun 23, 2012 7:42 PM #683349
Religious debates are supposed to give us an opportunity to really think about what we believe, and discuss them with people who have different views. It's a way to help you personally confirm your own beliefs.

Most (a)theistic beliefs are not the result of analyzing all possible alternatives, and then choosing to believe in the one that makes the most sense. Plenty of people grow up believing something without ever doubting it, because it's all they know.. but that's not a belief, that's indoctrination. There's no logical basis for taking a side if you have no idea what the others have to offer. Who knows? Maybe you might learn something that seems more likely than whatever you were raised to believe.


The problem is, most people refuse to even entertain the idea that they're wrong. Which is why you think these debates are pointless. You don't see it as a way for us to collectively challenge our own beliefs, you see it as a bunch of people "arguing" over who's right and who's wrong.

If that's the case then yeah, this debate's pointless for you. But I think it's very arrogant to assume there's nothing anyone can say that will make you question your views. No one should be that convinced of something that's inherently unknowable.
Fusion
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Jun 23, 2012 8:03 PM #683364
Quote from Mikematic
I mean I doubt all this debating is going to make anyone change there ways, its not there fault, I mean it's just how they were brought up.

That's kind of silly. The vast majority of Atheists were raised as Christians or as part of another religion, some quite devout at that, which makes perfect sense because the majority of people as a whole are religious. If you ask a lot of these people how they became Atheist, I can almost guarantee you that at least one of them will tell you that they read things like these debates and that is what changed their mind.
Mikematic
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Jun 23, 2012 8:14 PM #683374
You guy do make very good points. But making people change there minds about there religion isn't exactly a "good" thing. But that's just my 2 cents, have fun "debating".
Exile
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Jun 23, 2012 8:23 PM #683381
Quote from Mikematic
You guy do make very good points. But making people change there minds about there religion isn't exactly a "good" thing.


We're not "making" anyone do anything.

When I believed in god, death scared the absolute shit out of me. That fearful doubt more or less led to an existential crisis. Now that I'm a pantheist I have no fear of death, and I have a much more positive outlook on life. Changing your beliefs is not a bad thing, not at all. It's also not the purpose of these debates.