Holy crap. I go take a nap and I come back to this shit? (Regarding all the purple lines)

Obviously you guys are picking apart lines just to argue. I love it how my entire comment was made out of context.

1. I regarded both non-believers and believers for the sole reason that both sides have assholes and I was trying to deter assholes from their assholelishness.

2. If anyone had actually bothered to read the comments 52 and below, you would have seen people going ape shit about the crusades and the inquisition. I mentioned Stalin and Pol Pot as a way to DEMONSTRATE that you cannot base what people are because some asshole in the past who shared ONE trait with them was an asshole.

3. Jesus H. Christ, I said it in the passage that I would refer to the Christian faith because I am a Christian. Being a Christian, I am obviously going to know more about the Bible then the Kuran. Obviously, I am going to be able to make more references to it. I wasn't trying to preach to anyone.

4. I was regarding believers in the last paragraph. You read it because you fucking wanted to, not because I called your attention to it saying "BLASTED ATHEISTS, READ THIS!". I would never do something like that because I actually have Atheist friends and we have a very clear understanding of "You don't throw a science book at my head while screaming 'idiot' and I won't throw Holy Water at you while saying 'demons be gone!' "

P.S. That was a fucking joke.

5. Don't send me messages about how I am probably some privileged princess who has never had an actual hard day in my life and that is why I believe in God. I have been through shit that most of you on this site have never encountered. I believe in God because He has been my crutch, my friend, my father, my counsellor, my everything through all hard moments in my life. I love God and I will always love God.

stalin was raised orthodox and made religious studies until he got expelled.

"Superior father figure who loves us" my ass
Pic relevant

If you believe in hell, and believe that I will go there for not believing, then you are quite simply an immoral prick for worshipping a god that would do that.
No doubt about it



Go ahead
Try to justify the existence of hell

Yes, God is a superior Father-figure who loves us. Take every aspect of a good father (an actual good father, not one who dotes on their kids and accepts every wrong they do) and you can apply it to God. You can actually apply it to most versions of God (Allah, Buddah, etc.)

I believe in Hell and I am going to tell you one thing that I hope you hold on to your entire life.

No one knows who is going to Hell and if they say they do then they are liars. I could very well get to Heaven and your ass will be there as I could very well be sent to Hell (who knows, FJ might just turn me into a serial killer) and you be in Heaven.

No one knows. We, as in Christians, believe that in the beginning that was true. God would send non-believers to Hell. BUT WAIT! THERE IS MORE!

No one is sent to Heaven or Hell at the moment. We are all waiting for Judgement Day, both the living and the dead. When God sent Jesus down to Earth to be punished for the sins of the Humans, it made it so that people would enter the Kingdom of Heaven based on their deeds while on Earth.

So basically, "if you are an asshole, you are going to get an asshole treatment."

Hell is there to punish those who accepted the evil nature of man and became it. We are all evil, what separates us from "evil" people is the choice to do good. (Read: Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream Of, extremely good book concerning criminal psychology and the nature of man).

"No one knows"
And yet you seem to know an awful lot about the whole judgement day

Why would god need to send down jesus to be dead for a few days and then go back up?

What sins did the humans commit?

No one knows as in, no human knows what name is written on the Book of Life (basically the register list for Heaven). Judgement Day is the day in which Christians believe Jesus will return to Earth, get everyone, then God will replenish the world and we will come back. A couple thousand years of peace will be mixed in there.

After defying God in the Garden of Eden, God was so mad that he made us be accountable for our actions and our deeds. He then noticed that the world was going ape-shit, so he sent the flood. The world continued to go ape-shit and people were starting to spite each other (blah blah blah, I am really tired and I need more sleep) so then he sent Jesus in to help people understand that they need to stop hating and start loving (Jesus showed love to prostitutes and drunkards, generally people who were viewed to not be worthy of societies love at that time.)

Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through for a supposedly omnipotent deity

He could have just snapped his fingers and made it all go away, but noooo. Let's let the humans destroy themselves for another few thousand years, then kill all of them by drowning them.

Think of it this way:

If you went your life denying that God existed, hating his people, hating his commandments, et cetera, would you want to spend ETERNITY with him? Dante made up our image of Hell. In the Bible, it's mainly just separation from God. As for why he would punish people for sinning, it's like letting a bunch of murderers and rapists in your home. You wouldn't want that to tarnish something that's good. Also, it says that in Hell, he is simply letting you have your heart's desires. If you desired sex, drugs, murder, etc. then you will be given total lust, total hatred, and other things like that.

Firstly, I'm not denying anything.
Denying it would imply that it was real.

Secondly, I don't care who made up the image christians have of hell. I only care what they believe, not where it came from.

Someone who believes I must be tortured for thinking for myself is immoral, even evil. That's all I'm trying to say.

Then people like liebebella try to tell me that it is actually due to love, that I am to be tortured for all eternity. Doesn't add up. I call bullshit

Again. What a lot of people say they believe about Christianity, isn't even in the Bible. So there's that for one.

Secondly, again, in the Bible all it says it is is separation from God, who is all that is good according to the Bible. I'm not trying to prove you wrong, just trying to tell you that it makes more sense if you actually read the Bible, and don't take stuff out of context.

I keep telling you. I don't care where they got the idea of hell.

It's that they believe in it.

I know hell isn't mentioned in the bible.

I just care what people actually believe, not what they SHOULD believe.

No, it's definitely mentioned. Whenever they talk about damnation and such, that's what they're talking about.

The only thing about sinners being in fire is in Revelation. And you're judging the religion by the people who are simply "christian" for convenience. I judge other beliefs, not by the people, but by the doctrines.

Well then I am simply more practical

People don't follow the doctrines
They manipulate them to suit their own needs, their own lives.

not really a good argument as a whole, bro, if it had been a buddhist you'd have it a lil bit up the ass

Just trying to point out how different our definitions of a "loving father figure" are

hint (mine doesn't invovle torture)

yeah, still thumbed you for it

Eat a Donkey turd.

~Sincerely, Sane people of humanity. :I

finally, some words of wisdom.

well SOME idiots are bound to disagree.

BAM. There you go. Persecution, only took you two minutes.

oh give it a rest.
What about you athiests, who go after someone the moment they reveal their beliefs.
Since you obviously failed to read, the argument between he and I was resolved peacefully, with respect on both sides.
It's people like you who give athiests a bad name.

I'm in school, as in right now.
And secodly, pardon me. my tounge has somewhat sharpened as of late due to unrelated matters. I just don't see how you think what this person is saying can be considered foolish.

hey look a vegatable!

Lol'd so friggin hard!

I'd still like to know where your opinion differs from that of the thread originator. it seemed to me that his words were incredibly universal.

The unrelated pic is indeed delicious, thus my unrelated gif is related to your unrelated pic.

In response to your first point, I think it only helps with visualization, which people need to grasp something, to have an image of God. the bi ble tells us that God in himself is incoprehensable, and that is why he sent us Jesus, so that we could understand him better. there are many deeper religious thinkers who send more time wrestling with what God's true form is, but me, i perefer to devote my thoughts to wroking out what i believe God wants from me personally.
As for my religion, my father was called into the ministry when i was very young. when i turned 13, he told me to take a serious look into my faith and decide for myself weather or not it was what i thought was right. i found that it was.

Well, it's understandable that Jesus would seem more credible than God, that was his purpose. and really he did prove that he was the son of God, he raised people from the dead, including himself, he fed the 5000, he even calmed a storm. now you may not beleive all that happened, but one thing is for sure: the Romans kept records of Jesus's execution (pretty in character for them) as well as those who followed him. the records confirm that Jesus' follwers abandoned him on the day of the crucifiction, but soon after, they were preaching his teachings and bravely facing the prospect of death, undaunted. this is what did it for me. If it were all a lie(the resurrection, that is), then how do explain the fact that a man who just a week earlier had denied christ with a curse, would stand before pilate and say "Except for these chains, i wish you had what i have."?

thishas been a nice conversation, i hope you do well in your classes.

I'm agnostic, and even I know that you should just let religious people be.....

we're having an intresting deliberation here.
For once, no one's mad. there's no prejudice, just logic and reason.
This is how religion debates should be.

I'll just leave this here.

The exact point I was trying to make with the Stalin and Pol Pot comment. Basing hatred or stupidity of one group of people on what some asshole said (and then people never questioned it) doesn't work because it can be applied to both sides of the argument.

I don't feel like typing it up again, please refer to the reply I made to my original comment.

totally thinking the same thing

FUCK YOU GOD ISNT REAL GO BACK TO SCHOOL

Haters gonna hate

THAT'S your argument?
You're going to completely ignore the fact that many of the worlds most intellegent people were christian?

Most people in the world are christians


Naturally, most of the smart ones are christian too
Aswell as most of the dumb ones

LOLOLOL The vast majorty of scientists today are atheists

sorry bro, most people in the world are muslim. Then buddhists (with some local beliefs thrown in the pot usually). Then christians.

Dumbass.

Sorry bro, but you're wrong.

Most of the statistics (than are easily available by google) show that around 30% are christians and 20% are muslims.

well slap me a dress and call me sally. My apologies, good sir.

It's quite alright, we all make mistakes





except me, cuz I'm awesome

Seems the image got fucked up.
Still shows the necessary parts

were

still are.
The only person who sounds uneducated right now is you.

Everyone has seen all sorts of "faith healers" who can "heal" the sick. And we all know that this sort of "healing" is quackery. If it were true, then we would not need doctors, hospitals or prescription medicines.
Turning water into wine... Doesn't that sound like something that a B-grade David-Copperfield-wannabe magician would do in a nightclub act? There are a dozen ways that you could stage things to make it look like water is turning into wine. There is no reason why a normal person would accept a magic trick as proof that someone is God.
Neither of these miracles can be scientifically tested today. Not one of Jesus' miracles left any tangible evidence for scientists to study.
It is as simple as that. If someone claimed to be God today, you would never believe it if the evidence consisted of faith healing and magic tricks. Never. Yet billions of people claim that Jesus' faith healing and magic tricks prove that he is God.
Let's imagine that Jesus truly is God. What might he have done to prove it? He could have started by taking one of his most famous quotes from the Bible and acting on it. In Matthew 17:20 Jesus says quite clearly:

For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
To prove that he is God, Jesus would have moved a mountain. Especially since it is so easy. And Jesus would have written something down to explain himself. Here's what the first page of Jesus' book might have looked like:

First off, Jesus didn't serve the wine in that story. He simply told them to use the dirtiest water and serve it. By the time the servants poured it out, it was wine.

As for those faith healings... I've seen a man with cerebral palsy get up and run barefoot. Which is kind of something they can't do. And if you haven't seen somebody with cerebral palsy, it's kind of obvious when they do.

Now I'm not saying you should be a Christian, because I have no interest in trying to force people into becoming Christians. What I am saying is that there are cases of miracles. Whether those are actually God's work, or some crazy working of the world and universe that science can't yet explain, is still up for debate, and doesn't really matter.

Also, when you insult somebody who's trying to be peaceful about their religion, and you attack them for it, you probably shouldn't act like religious people are the only ones that are offensive and rude. Not to mention, it kind of helps give people who believe in a god a reason to dislike atheists, and turn away from science. Science is an awesome tool, and everybody should be a scientist I think, but when people quote theories and bash world belief systems (which most of the world believes) then it makes lots of people not want to use science and logic, because they see idiots claiming they're logical and peaceful, as they attack a religion and its believers.

TL;DR: If you want religious people to stop attacking you for your beliefs, maybe you should stop attacking them for theirs. Most religious people I know, don't care, and won't even bring it up, except briefly. Most atheists I know, don't care, and won't bring it up, except lightly. And then there's douchebags like you and the WBC.

Yep. I compared you to WBC.

In the first draft of the Bible he was supposed to battle dragons. That would've also been pretty cool..

I can't even begin to count the number of times people have resorted to calling Jesus a "magician" or a "Quack" that argument is getting older than the queen of england.
And furthermore, i'm not asking you to believe in God, as it's clear that you don't want to. just leave us who do believe in god alone. we're aren't stupid. we just think differently.

hey dude, if you responded my first comment, can you my second plz?

done

........I got an argument, I think.

I don't want to call on christians or start a fight or anything, I just want to know what would be a christians response to this.

Jesus did all those things in the Bible, right? It was his apostles and witnesses that wrote down later on what they saw with their own eyes, they wrote down every miracle that Jesus did (i don't know if every), and then it later became the Bible, or I mean the New Testament.

What about the first drafts? you know, the apocryphas, the writings of Jesus' apostles that got cut from the council of Nycea.

If it were the apostles that wrote them, then it means Jesus must have also accomplished those, right?
Putting the fact that Jesus' exploits were cut aside, this leaves one question:

Jesus really did then master a bunch of dragons, turn a kid to dust because he played with his water, kill another because he had bumped into him, exploded a snake, smit people with blindess?

Just askin.

We don't know about all those things for sure. we only know that some things were chosen to be part of the bible and others weren't. There were also dozens of other letters written by Paul to the various churches that we didn't add to the bible. does that make them any less relevant, i don't know because i haven't read them.
As for your argument, if you can say something doesn't exist, just because you haven't seen it, can i then ay that i do not believe in these passages you mention, because i have never heard of them?

but do you believe those in the bible are real? and if so, if you DID read the letters why would you know if they are relevant?
As for your last argument, my passages are here:
www.crackedDOTCOM/article189485-real-deleted-bible-scenes-in-which-jesus-kicks -some-assDOTHTML

well, i didn't find your articles so i think you gave me the wrong link. but the fact that this is coming from a humor website is a good sign that it's not credible.

but it's just a quick compilation from the New testament apocrypha. And could you please answer my questions?

1.Yes.
2.I have read the letters in the bible. i have not thuroughly read the ones that weren't in the bible.
Did you have anything else?

well, yeah, i'm still asking whether or not a model christian would believe St-Paul's other letters not in the Bible about Jesus turning people blind. And when you said "does that make them any less relevant, i don't know because i haven't read them", what does that exactly mean?

St. pauls letters weren't about Jesus' life.
They were written to various churches which were enduring oppression and persecution. St. Paul wrote to give those churches strength when they needed it.
Really it all just comes down to beleif. I believe, you don't.
You aren't going to believe, i'm not going to stop believing. thus is the end of our story.

but the Apocrypha comes from Thomas, Matthew and the First Gospel of Infancy...

why do you base your argument in something you don't have any faith in?
If you say your faith is in reason, then why do you not base you argument on reason alone?

i have no argument, and i have no opinion. I'm just curious whether or not christians believe in the words of the apostles even if they weren't published in the Bible. If you feel uncomfortable with the subject, tell me and i'll stop immediately.

I'd never admit such a thing.
We are called to step outside of our comfort zone, if I'm uncomfortable, it only means i'm growing ever-stronger in my faith.

fair enough

glad i could answer your question.

............uhm................okay. Listen, i really just wanted to ask a religion question, and if you didn't want to answer, sure, but if you do.......'it's complicated' isn't really an answer. Like, why or why not?

If you feel you don't know the answer and don't want to tell me rubbish, that's fine, but let's say things aren't really clearer with saying it's complicated. Yes and no, as in: Are you faithful to the word of every apostle? If not, which ones? Even their work denied by the Church?
Could you get shunned by the Church if you believe a text the Church doesn't approve?

alright, i'll say this. If you don't go to church, it's going to be dfficult for you to understand.
There's a certain pattern, i guess you might call it, like an artist of a song. when you listen to a certain singer for long enough, you start to recognize when it comes from them, or when it's an impostor. in the same way, when you learn about faith, you start to learn the difference betweensomething that comes from God, and something that doesn't.
Our denomination, in particular(Methodist) teaches that the only relevant source is that which comes from God. the easiest way to know that is if it's in the bible, because we believe that God had an active role in which books actually made it into the bible.
While i'm not saying that the other writings aren't relevant, there may be a reason that God didn't want them in the bible, maybe because it wasn't true, or maybe he just thought there was enough already.
While i doubt you'll except this reply, all you asked was "do you trust in these other writings?" in which case i reply, i don't know. I haven't read them, therefore cannot determine weather i believe that they are right.

so, what?
Do we believe in the other works, yes and no.
It's a bit more complicated than that.

you're argument is so invalid its not worth an argument

what do you mean by that?
Why must you continually attack what i believe? did a christian do something to wrong you? Has a christian hurt you in some way?

lets agree to disagree


knob

why do you have to keep acting in this way? whatever this unnamed christian did to you in the past to make you so hateful, i would like to apologize on his/ her behalf.
We spend our entire lives (most of us) just trying to make this broken world a better place to live in, and there are those of us who continue to ruin that in our name. I'm not asking you to let go of your beleifs, just let us have ours.

red thumbs mean stop

does it look like i'm the kind of person who will let some red pixels affect me?

congratulations....?
I don't get it, what's so great about it?

I'm sorry for what happened to you, but if a little hardship was all it took to shake your faith, you clearly didn't believe as much as you think you did.

But i won't stand in the way of what you don't beleive in, like so many athiests try to do to me. You do as you please.

thanks, it's just nice not to feel alone.
Don't let anyone shake your faith, keep standing up for what you believe in.

"Keep believing even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary"
^That's you

What can i say?
That's where the faith part comes in.
I'm not going to argue it with you, because to see the evidence you have to be willing to look for it.

well, good luck with all that.

To any other athiests reading this, i know you aren't all like this.

As I can't reply to your other comment, here I go

"That's where the faith part comes in. "
and
"because to see the evidence you have to be willing to look for it"

Meaning I have to already believe in order to see the evidence
In other words: There is no evidence

Please tell me you see the logic in that

I've already argued the point twice today, so I'm just going to sum it up quickly.

Those who are willing to see things one way, will see it that way.
Those who refuse to see it that way, cannot.

Religion is for those who want it, not for those who don't, unless your name happens to be Saul.

That's all i have to say, good day.