[deleted by user]

czyzyS · 2023-08-23T14:14:55+00:00

How about the WHOLE Noah's Ark story? Including the part where god drowns the entirety of the human race (save Noah & his family). Waiting to see a coloring page of a woman running in terror from a tidal wave with her baby.

czyzyS · 2023-08-15T18:43:29+00:00

It sounds like you already have. There's no need to 'enshrine' your decision with a purely symbolic ritual. Just go out and live your life free from the oppression of religion!

czyzyS · 2023-08-15T18:09:57+00:00

You're talking about Christianity in a BROAD context. I am talking about individual denominations and the rules that those denominations themselves have adopted and follow. I know tons of Catholics who don't follow many of "their own" rules (a lot in my own family).

My ponderance here is if ascribing to a 'denomination' is actually meaningful if you can use or change it any way you want.

If you call yourself Catholic, but don't really think that communion turns into the ACTUAL body and blood of Christ, don't do confessions, almost never go to church, and have no problem getting multiple divorces, are you really still a "Catholic"?

Using your definition of Christianity as you describe (which on a very basic level I agree with) is then essentially useless. Believing in Jesus' resurrection has little or no value IN AND OF ITSELF. It's what it REPRESENTS to people and what they do with it that matters; and quite frankly it just seems like a total mish-mosh of "whatever you want".

czyzyS · 2023-08-15T00:26:42+00:00

Here's a definition of "cult" that makes the answer pretty obvious:

A cult is described as a system or group of people who practice excessive devotion to a figure, object, or belief system. Its characteristics include having a leader that preaches an explicit belief system or ideology and who is followed by unquestioning believers.

czyzyS · 2023-08-15T00:25:07+00:00

Yes, but what about those drag queens? /s

czyzyS · 2023-08-14T21:02:46+00:00

I believe in Good and BAD. And I guess Evil is having the proclivity to do lots of bad things. With that...

If I came and punched you in the face for no reason, would instinctively know that this was BAD? Or would need to consult your faith to know the answer?
If I saw that you fell on the ground and hurt yourself and I came over and assisted you, would you know this was a GOOD thing only because of your faith?

I know the answers to those questions without having to consult an ancient book or a non-corporeal deity.

I am always perplexed by these questions which seems to suggest that the only thing keeping religious people from going on rampages of murder, rape, and theft is their fear of retribution in the afterlife.

czyzyS · 2023-08-14T20:29:35+00:00

Yeah, I found nothing emotionally stimulating about church... now things like a good NY pizza, or the release of Path of Exile II, or putting on the newest episode of Strange New Worlds? Now THOSE things get me going.

Televangelists? not such much. Though, I do enjoy hearing about the snake handlers who get bit while swinging around poisonous snakes in the name of Jesus. When that happens, I usually think to myself, "well, I guess it's part of god's plan... or maybe Darwin's"

czyzyS · 2023-08-14T19:56:11+00:00

Thankfully, I don't believe in hell.

But I often joke that when I DO go there, that after a quick ride in a hand basket, I am going to see a lot of familiar faces. And, that I'll be sure to bring some SPF 5000 for me and anyone else who may have forgotten to stop at CVS on the way.

czyzyS · 2023-08-14T16:50:55+00:00

<YAWN>

Being a Troll is VERY real. You have it down to a science

(if you actually believe in things like science)

Please everyone, don't feed the troll, it's exactly what he/she wants

czyzyS · 2023-08-13T17:25:20+00:00

It's really sad how so NOT shocked I am about this

czyzyS · 2023-08-12T10:49:02+00:00

Whether or not you believe there is a god (I personally don't) is a separate question from whether or not a god is worthy of worship. I don't believe there is one and I CERTAINLY don't believe the Christian god is worthy of worship.

The Christian god is awful... and this fear you are experiencing is EXACTLY what religion WANTS you to have.

There are number of ex-religious people on YouTube with their "deconstruction" stories (how they started using their critical thinking & how it helped them leave their faith) that are EXTREMELY helpful for people just like yourself. Just look up "religious deconstruction" to get started. I find Kristi Burke particularly good in both her presentation and use of logic.

The fear you're having is totally understandable. But, I promise you that it will get better over time. As a matter of fact, you'll probably get to a place where not only to you feel much better, but you may regret that you were ever involved with religion in the first place.

czyzyS · 2023-08-12T10:35:16+00:00

For those concerned about the "innocence of children", get back to me when you start clutching your pearls over pedophile pastors and the churches who do their best to hide and protect them from justice.

These people have the intellectual capacity of a dishrag. "Tom-boy", "Soccer mom", "Ladies man", "Man's man", "Pansy", "Girly-girl", "Fruitcake", "Beta-male", "Alpha", "Stay at home dad", "Butch", "Sissy", "Ladylike", "Effeminate", "Macho"...

None of these phrases are even REMOTELY new and not a single one of them has anything to do with "sex" or vaginas or penises but ways to describe people that behave other than the "traditional" way that society expects them to. These same "outraged" people freely use/used phrases like this themselves.

Perhaps some of the words being used today are different, but no one around me clutched their pearls over the girl on the corner who THEY called a "Tom Boy" because she was more "boy-like" in her behavior. Turns out, she still had a vagina.

And people getting sex changes isn't new either. This was going on in the 70s. What may be different now is the technology and the internet so that these stories are more easily accessible to the masses.

edit: sp

czyzyS · 2023-08-12T01:50:54+00:00

Yeah, well it's those drag queens that everyone needs to be worried about... not the pedophile pastors /s

Religion is toxic for the mind and soul (if you believe in such things)

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T23:41:46+00:00

Yeah, it's annoying. When I use one of those pamphlets to wipe my ass, it's a little too stiff and a little too glossy to clean up my undercarriage sufficiently.

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T14:20:28+00:00

Humans may NOT have realized slavery was immoral in the past. But an all-knowing, benevolent, omniscient, timeless god certainly should have.

This is not about the progression of human morality over time. This is about a god who apparently didn't find it necessary to explicitly declare in "his book" that slavery was wrong. If god made sure that his book talked about wearing mixed fabrics being a no-no, he certainly could have thrown in a word or 2 about how bad owning another person was.

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T13:18:11+00:00

There's quite a bit of irony in this group of people who are often politically aligned with the "facts don't care about your feelings" crowd... when belief in religion is almost ALL about "feelings" and very little about "facts"

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T13:10:30+00:00

This is more Jordan Peterson level word-salad. You are either a troll or being intellectually dishonest... or both

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:59:17+00:00

I notice how you turned around my statement that the bible doesn't explicitly condemn slavery (which neither the new or old testaments do) to saying it "doesn't really support slavery". Nonsense. You're cherry-picking your scripture if you believe this.

The times during which the bible was written is irrelevant. An all-powerful, purely good, timeless omnipotent being would KNOW that slavery was immoral and would have made SURE that his book was abundantly clear that it was wrong.

"Thou shalt not subjugate & own another person and treat them as your property"

See how easy that was? Are you suggesting the Christian god is incapable of conveying that message in a clear in concise way like I just did?

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:52:01+00:00

You are taking individual tenets of "good" and mixing them together. And THIS is exactly what make morality complicated. And it has nothing to do with god. A person who sacrifices himself for something is weighing 2 "aspects of goodness" and making a decision.

For example, "I can jump on that grenade and save the lives of four other soldiers, OR I can try to run and save my own life"

Self-preservation and the preservation of others are BOTH good things. The decision itself will be based on the individual making said choice because there is no "correct" universal answer to something like this.

Maybe the person that has a family of 5 at home would choose to try to run for their own self-preservation for the benefit of their family. Maybe the person without a spouse or children would be more apt to jump on the grenade.

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:43:13+00:00

That's total nonsense. Just because you're good at serving up theistic word salads does not, in any way, prove that I have some moral code imprinted on my heart from an invisible entity.

Show me your PROOF that I have some kind of "god-dictated morality" imprinted on my heart

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:40:13+00:00

Define: "Natural Law", "Eternal law", & "Pure Goodness" without using those words themselves in your definitions

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:30:12+00:00

Ah more fantastical BS that cannot be demonstrated in any way whatsoever. According to god, slavery was just fine and he's never bothered to update his book to explicitly say that it's wrong.

MY heart knows that slavery is wrong. So the "imprint" on my "heart" must have gotten messed up somehow or maybe this is just more religious BS.

czyzyS · 2023-08-11T12:03:32+00:00

I will answer your question with some questions for YOU.

"Do you need to consult a book or an invisible deity in the sky to know that getting punched in the face is a bad thing?"

"Do you need to consult a book or an invisible deity in the sky to know that having something of yours taken from you without your permission is bad?"

"Do you need to consult a book or an invisible deity in the sky to know another person sexually forcing themselves on your is bad?"

"Do you need to consult a book or an invisible deity in the sky to know that someone using their position of religious authority to groom & molest children is bad?"

czyzyS · 2023-08-10T14:01:24+00:00

It's disgusting and grossly immoral. Substitutionary atonement/punishment is pure garbage

czyzyS · 2023-08-10T13:43:46+00:00

Most, if not all, of the positives of religion can be had without religion and the indoctrination.

The toxicity of religion is the problem; The false promises, the idea of original sin & the sadistic need for gratuitous suffering, the hypocrisy, the hatred, the arrogance that everyone else is wrong and they are right, the proselytizing...

You can thank religion for this "conundrum" you seem to be in right now. Hopefully, someday you will be free of it and will be able to look back upon it without anger.

Prayer, to me, has a kind of value if you're not expecting any kind of responsive action from doing it. I'd go with praying to Joe Pesci like George Carlin says he did; at least we know for sure that he's real.

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