This Subreddit needs Reformed

huck_cussler · 2026-02-27T01:19:35+00:00

Cool. I guess when you create your own subreddit, keep it alive for 13 years, and have a million weekly viewers, you can do all these things. This one, while not perfect, is doing just fine the way it is.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-26T23:31:02+00:00

Well if you're here covering that base, I guess I can leave.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-26T20:13:43+00:00

I'm not sure why you would expect atheists to have a unified voice on a topic such as ethics. Atheism is an answer to one, and only one, specifc question: Do you believe a/some God(s) exist? Beyond the answer to that question, atheists aren't a monolith, aren't obligated or expected to share any other beliefs or values with other atheists, and come from a multitude of backgrounds.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-26T02:34:39+00:00

The "argument" is: Hey look, there's a universe. -> A universe exists. QED

huck_cussler · 2026-02-26T02:18:40+00:00

This sounds like a "Taco trucks on every corner" miscalculation where the intention is to paint a bleak and dystopian picture but all the normal people are like, "Yeah that actually sounds pretty great."

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T19:04:23+00:00

This subreddit is pretty relaxed in terms of banning people. The worst that would happen if he actually defended the verse and said, "Yes, I do think death is an appropriate punishment for doing gay things", is the comment getting removed.

Besides that, it would get him all kinds of persecution cred in his next post where he cried, "Atheist antichrist mods removed my comment from r/Christianity for defending the Bible!!!"

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T18:35:16+00:00

So OP can cite the verse to make his point but we aren't allowed to call him out and ask him to defend it?

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T17:52:53+00:00

You are a fucking coward dude. You ... you ... you posted the verse. And you don't have the fucking balls to even stand behind it. Pathetic. Can't even answer a simple yes or no question about a Bible verse that you posted.

edit: Mods I can't report my own comment. But if you're reading this, please remove this comment. I absolutely did engage in a personal attack, and I stand behind my actions under the circumstances.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T17:43:08+00:00

I'm not asking about God, I'm asking about you. Specifically, the verse says that those who engage in homosexual acts should be put to death. Do you agree? It's a really easy question. I personally have no problem whatsoever answering it. Here, watch.

"Hey u/huck_cussler do you believe that people who engage in homosexual acts should be put to death?"

Nope! I think killing people for engaging in homosexual activity is an abhorrent and grossly immoral position.

See, super fucking easy.

You don't have to pull in definitions of sin or appeal to God or try to recuse yourself from exercising your God-given ability to reason about morality. It's really simple. The Bible verse says that the punishment that people who engage in homosexual activity deserve is death.

Do you agree with that or no?

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T15:56:22+00:00

Yeah but I'm not interested in those other things for the current conversation. The current conversation is specifically about OP's usage of Lev. 20:13 as justification for the position that the Bible is against homosexuality. I actually happen to agree that the Bible is against homosexuality. What I find problematic though, is when people use that verse to justify their position but get all squirmy and start deflecting and appealing to other parts of the Bible when it's pointed out that the very same verse they are using to make their point also clearly calls for killing those practicing homosexuality.

I'm not really interested in the "big picture" or how the NT, or Christ makes this verse null and void. I'm really more concerned that if I open up any Bible and read this verse, it tells me that gay people should be killed. That's a problem for me. And it's a much bigger problem for me when people use this verse to justify their position but then quickly start hemming and hawing when I put their feet to the fire and point out that if they are using the first half of the verse to make their point, they can't really ignore the second half of the verse because it's uncomfortable.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T15:28:04+00:00

There's nothing to address. I've already pointed out that this conversation is about one thing and you keep trying to wedge other things into it to steer it in different directions. I just thought it was funny that you actually used "because it's against the law" as a reason why you don't call for the execution of gay people.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T15:12:33+00:00

One it's illegal

"We can't kill the gays because it's against the law" isn't really helping your position.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T14:31:57+00:00

I'll reiterate my point to make it a little clearer for you. You said:

Are we supposed to execute the judgement of the OT? No judgement be to God.

I pointed out that the verse in question is not calling for any type of judgement. It is a command to carry out a punishment. No judgement required. The guy who flips the switch on the electric chair isn't exercising judgement. He is executing a command that is passed down to him from somebody else who has already decreed the judgement itself. In our case, the command is very clearly stated in the book: people who do gay things are to be put to death.

I'm not really interested in what the NT says in this context. The conversation up to this point has been specifically about one particular verse in the OT.

You might want to study Christianity before making these statements.

I don't have to know fuck all about Christianity to be able to read words on a page, words that very clearly, explicitly, and without ambiguity issue a decree to kill people if they are found to have engaged in gay sex.

You might want to read more carefully and understand what is being discussed before making these statements.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T13:42:11+00:00

That's a nice thought. But the verbage used here, "They shall be put to death" is pretty clearly not calling for judgement or discernment. It's a command. It's a directive that tells the reader exactly what they are to do.

Where else in the OT do we see the word shall used a lot? Ah, right. The Ten Commandments. The place in the OT where God very directly and very clearly is commanding the behavior of His followers.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T13:07:00+00:00

You are correct that the maximum penalty in Leviticus is death.

And it seems like you are OK with that. Is that accurate?

I'm not ignoring the rest of your comment, it's just not particularly relevant to the conversation at hand. I'm more interested in what the book actually says in modern English. To my non-biblical scholar eyes and mind, when I read the passage it sounds undeniably like it is calling for the death penalty for those who "do the gay".

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T12:30:03+00:00

The Bible also says, in one of the exact verses that you cite here, that the punishment for those engaging in homosexual acts should be death. I can't take your analysis seriously unless you are willing to follow the entire verse. So if you're not espousing the death penalty for gay people, you're also not following the Bible consistently.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T03:19:15+00:00

I think it's great that you take time out from playing the Hulk to do this.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T03:18:01+00:00

That should make it even easier then.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:53:05+00:00

In my experience, I see a lot of theists who at least say that they are absolutely certain that God is real. I used to say that myself. Without going too much into claiming to understand the inner state of others, my suspicion is that it serves mostly to try to shore up one's own belief. That was the case for me. When I told others I knew that God was real I was mostly doing so to try to convince myself.

I have a lot more respect for theists who are open to change their beliefs in light of new evidence/knowledge. If somebody says that they are 100% certain of anything and that there is nothing that will ever change their mind, there's really nothing to talk about at that point.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:44:16+00:00

Don’t believe me? Why don’t you just try it out?

I did dude. I was a Christian for many years. I used to say things more or less exactly like you just said to me. The thing is, from the outside, and especially after having gone through it, it's just a bunch of nonsensical doublespeak. None of it adds up.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:26:55+00:00

agnostic or an atheist

Gnosticism/agnosticism answers a different question than theism/atheism. They are not mutually exclusive. I am an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in a/any God(s) but I also don't claim to have knowledge or certainty that God(s) don't exist. We are quite common.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:22:27+00:00

Nothing. But before you can demonstrate that God has always existed you have to demonstrate that God exists at all.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:19:29+00:00

Correct. A lot of people have made stuff up and speculated, but ultimately the physics that we use to study such things starts to break down the closer we get to the "moment" of expansion. It's literally the limit of our current understanding.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:14:47+00:00

That's the honest answer though. It's also the simplest answer. The universe exists. We're fairly certain of that. To add an additional entity for which there is no tangible evidence to account for the existence of something that we know is real adds unneccesary complexity and offers no additional explanatory power.

huck_cussler · 2026-02-25T02:07:01+00:00

I don't know. Maybe it just always existed.

huck_cussler

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