you have decided so

you were born with an inclination towards God but you became too proud and arrogant to believe in God through your own choices in life

now you demand God prove Himself to you as though He is some dog you can order around

you have turned yourself into a god in your own image

I agree.
I have decided to live my life based on EVIDENCE so if I were (somehow) "born with an inclination toward god" (which I don't think is true BTW), that would be a kind of inborn bias which needs to be corrected by studying objective reality.

Why should I blindly accept something without evidence? Because a really old book says I should?
There are MANY old books! What about the Koran? For that matter.... which religion should I chose? They ALL make the exact same arguments as you do.

I prefer to remain a humble (not assuming that I no any better than anyone else) agnostic/atheist.
Additionally, I don't believe in mistreating dogs.

you are blinded by your pride

what you call "evidence" will be considered an outdated, old model in a few years

https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgpp...ng-to-solve-it'


the knowledge of the wisest men in the world becomes swept away generation after generation lower than the dust of the earth

but the faithfulness of babes becomes eternally rewarded by God


Matthew 11:25


2 Timothy 3:1-7


proud, boastful, lovers of themselves (and their own 'knowledge'), ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of truth



so much for living life based on "evidence"

Yes.
There are many things about the universe that we don't know. That's why I remain humble and don't any preconceived ideas (like god) without evidence.
You (on the other hand) are invoking the "god of the gaps" argument which goes something like: "Look at all the stuff wee don't know! Instead of investigating... let's just say "God did it!".
Admittedly, this IS an easier approach but it's not exactly rewarding! ;-)

And YES, science is an evolving work where theories get tested and are sometimes disproved. It can be messy but it's the best approach we have.

And please stop with the quotes from the book of fables. It's embarrassing.

It's as if I quoted from the Book of Lunkwill (Chapter 42, verse 69):

" And yea there will come a day where the false prophet Jehova-Jireh will rise from amongst the multitudes proclaiming his omniscience. Heed thee not his words as they are devoid of evidence!"

your very problem is how proud you are of yourself and your so-called knowledge

you refuse to accept your insignificance


here is a parable for you- there were two beggars in the street, one with two cents in his hand and the other one cent.

the first beggar said to the other: "i have twice as much money as you. look here!"

the second beggar looked and said: "not so, we have the same amount"


who is more right, the first beggar or the second?

I am the one accepting my insignificance.
YOU are the one claiming "special knowledge" that there is a god and YOUR knowledge is SO special that it can't be challenged!
YOU are the arrogant & prideful one.
I am just saying that all the human race can do is use science to slowly & carefully build up knowledge based NOT on our preconceived notions of religion based on old books but RATHER start with the premise that we know nothing and perform experiments and develop and TEST hypotheses.

Your beggar parable seems absurd.
I'm guessing there is some trick involving language or subjective impressions. Possibly having something to do with not explicitly associating the "first beggar" with the the money he possesses. You really need an unbiased third party to adjudicate the situation. (Examine the coins, test their composition, mass, etc etc)

But... at least you stopped quoting old books! ;-)

but you arent you need to prove everything because you consider yourself the arbiter of all things

your judgment your pride and arrogance determines whether something exists or doesnt exist whether something is good or bad

you have turned yourself into a god in your own image


Matthew 18:2-4

little children do not demand their parents "prove" anything to them

their parents say do this, do that

the children do it because they believe trust and have faith in their parents



what special knowledge did i claim? i am quoting the most widely published book in human history

so much for secrets

Do you know this one?

Have you been forgiven from above? Should you not then forgive the ones below?

Mark 9:14-15


blessed are the children they are helpless they understand they rely on adults

assuredly you are the same we all rely on God man was created from the dust of the earth the man who accepts his humility and insignificance blowing in God's wind will be saved

but the proud fool who is worth less than the dust of the earth yet imagines himself a god in his own image will forever suffer torture and slavery to far more powerful beings in the eternal fires of hell

if you are apart from God then by your very nature you are wicked and evil and depraved

you imagine yourself good because you please yourself

but assuredly you hurt everyone around you desiring them as your slaves but there are far more powerful beings than you evil who desire you as their slaves forever in hell

repent and obey and worship THE LORD do good not evil God is the only way

Do you have a soul? Is a soul insignificant and worthless?

Is Christ not forsaken by the Father? Is Christ wicked, evil, and depraved?

Listen, it is normal to desire certainty, salvation, and certainty about our salvation. Still, we must deny ourselves. Congratulations to the one who denies their desire for certainty and denies their salvation. That person truly will be saved.

1) I am not the arbiter. OBJECTIVE UNBIASED VERIFIABLE REPEATABLE TESTING is the arbiter and it is NOT infallible.
2) How can you say that I am proud and arrogant when I keep saying that I DEFER to the experiment? My personal subjective opinion is worth NOTHING (just like yours).
3) The fact that you think the argument that "a child doesn't demand proof from his parents" is exactly MY point. CHILDREN blindly trust their parents because their parents objectively exist and provide for the child's needs. However, when the child grows up, he LEARNS that his view of his parents as god-like characters was wrong. They are (of course) not supernatural beings.

And since you seem to be impressed with that old book, here is a line that I view as supporting my argument.

First Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11:
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

It's time you grew up and put away your childish book of fables.

BTW, I didn't write "secret knowledge".... I wrote "special knowledge" (in that it can't be challenged!). So nice try at a straw man's argument.

Your special knowledge is (of course) that you claim that god exists and your old book tells us stuff about him. Just because it is "most widely published book in human history" doesn't make it true.

It's so easy to understand the bible:

Humans killed Jesus/God. He was pissed and left us. Now we are on our own.
(Not that God/Jesus ever existed but this the way the inventors of the bible meant for us to understand the whole bs)

The bible is nothing more than a very old book of stories.
It may have some historical value or perhaps some lessons on morality (like Aesop's Fables).
But it is (of course) just a book written by humans.

Only if you ignore the "Hey angry mob at my door, please don't rape the angels in my house, rape my kids instead, waddaya say guys?"

Apart from that I 100% agree with your other points.

Yeah.... kinda hard to find the "moral lesson" there.
I know you are supposed to welcome strangers to your home but this seems a bit excessive! ;-)

Well, like any other source of morality, it probably pays to pick and choose. Contrary to what Christians say, the Bible is certainly not one unified book, but a hodgepodge of writings that were assembled over the course of many centuries. The “morality” you point out certainly is questionable (although it might be argued that this was a record of what actually happened rather than a commentary on what was morally right), there are other verses promoting much less questionable morality: “Love your neighbor as yourself”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, or even “Thou shall not kill” seem like pretty decent Biblical moral principles.

BTW in reference to the notion that much of the Bible is a narrative account rather than a moral guideline, I look more toward actions purportedly taken by God himself. Presumably these MUST be morally right. So in that vein it is pretty much okay to kill someone for “spilling his seed on the ground” rather than impregnating his dead brother’s wife. It is good morals to (assuming you have the power to do so) harden Pharoh’s heart so you can continue to torture innocent Egyptians who have nothing to do with the decision of whether or not to release the Hebrews (up to and including killing their children!). It pretty much is kosher to torture a poor guy who has no not even done anything wrong just to win a bet. Forcing death upon countless generations of people because some lady listened to a talking snake and ate an apple — perfectly fine!

One wonders why people read about this supposed God and think he is worthy of worship. Certainly fear I understand— he behaves a lot like a kid with a magnifying glass lighting bugs on fire just for fun. I would not want to piss this guy off either if I actually thought he existed.

this is self-worship

what you call morality is really just a bunch of excuses justifications why it is 'good' for you to do what you like and why it is 'wrong' for other people to do what offends you


what you call "pulling out" is the same as abortion, condoms, and birth control - intent to thwart God's design so you can pleasure yourself without consquences

the person who behaves in this manner does this in all walks of his or her life

selfish and self-centered people who live life for maximum pleasure with minimal consequences will not inherit the Kingdom of God

they will be damned to hell for all selfish pain they inflict on others living life only for themselves




classic dunning-kruger effect

God hardens peoples hearts by commanding them to do things they dont want to do because they are evil and want to keep doing it

the egyptians were enslaving an entire race of people and would not let them go

in your infinite wisdom what do you think God should have done maybe dropped a couple nukes on thebes and amarna?

you seem to have the whole universe figured out except for this part:



God saves anyone who believes in Him and does what He says even some of the Egyptians in Exodus


the selfish will face eternal judgment however there seems to be a common thread with people who have tons of posts claiming they hate God or dont believe in God

because these souls live for maximum pleasure with minimal consequences they are unhappy with the many limitations placed on them and their unsatisfactory stature in the world


obey God and worship THE LORD repent and be baptized it's not too late

Lag? You posted an article that illustrates slight differences in outcomes in the effort to fine tune our understanding of the accelerating universe by different approaches such as the Hubble constant and the CMB method. This is how we fine tune to a greater degree of how stuff works. I don't think religion should take this route, imo.

Conveniently ignoring the billions of people who have dedicated their life to god and then died of a horrible disease when they were 30. But sure, "THeY aRe iN HEavEn noW!"

What about all the fetuses that don't come to term because of health and developmental problems? Did god do it? It sure had to be his will. And what about the clincher: what about him killing every fetus on earth because of something someone else did?? What about that? What about mass killing with that kind of justification ... and the legions follow it and give it their blessing. Mass killing of fetuses, infants and children: "Oooookay with me. No problem. Sounds holy to me. Didn't that book say it was holy? Yup, holy. Who am I to think and be an agent? I sacrifice the true morality of being a thinking agent to superstitions of thousands of years ago."

"... and I have a spiel of untold amounts of doctrine to justify the reason for my default."

Imagine there are two fathers who identify as agnostic and whose wives each had a miscarriage. The first father decides that the loss is neither just nor unjust. It’s just something that happens. The second father decides that the loss is an injustice and imagines imposing justice on God. Which of the two do you personally admire more?

Now, let’s go back to the story about God ruthlessly killing fetuses. What affect do you see that story having on an agnostic father whose wife just had a miscarriage?

That is why that story is holy.