mesoteto said:
force implies that there are harsh concenquences to not having it the same way i do it is a choice she can make in her own way, but i would be a bad parent if i didnt present what i thought was the best option from the earliest chance i had in the end it boils down to her and god for the relation ship to be made, it is just my job as a servent and a father to lay the foundation and hope or the best |
I have to ask. You say there are there aren't harsh consequences for disbelieving in you and God? Yet you claim to be Christian, have you not mentioned Hell at any point to her? I would imagine that would be the harshest of consequences and threats to a small child.
Remember the Jesuit saying: "If you give me the boy for 7 years I will give you the man"
That is a scary phrase but also true. Natural selection has made it so as young children will almost always listen to their elders and this can be abused easily.
mesoteto said:
@scifi---that’s a common misconception about Christians, one we also don’t help by having stupid people get really vocal about the hate they try to spew hidden behind twisted passages
But Jesus Christ set what the standard should be for the Christian faith, he often healed those society deemed un pure, or as second class, even going so far as to heal and teach those of different faiths and no faiths
However most of that is overlooked for the older teachings that really shouldn’t be practiced anymore
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Jesus also had alot of "morals" that most modern and civilised people wouldn't touch with a barge pole today. For Example:
He made his disciples leave their family and forever excommunicate them if they wished to join him.
Luke 14:26
"If any mancome to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple"
| mesoteto said: ^ohh i know but its the nice warm feeling i have so its the only one i can try and share |
The nice warm feeling I as a atheist get is mainly from doing good things for my friends and random people because it improves the world in a small way, not because I feel I will be rewarded for it (or punished if i don't)
SciFiBoy said:
personally, if i ever have children, i would want to be there friend and parent in equal measure
|
Havign experienced life as both a kind of "step" parent and now as a real parent i would say that being a good parent is far more rewarding for you AND your child. You can be nice to your children as a parent you know? BE it by playing with them, helping with homework, taking them out places, teaching them things. It's not all shouting and them not wanting to tidy up! :P
HappySqurriel said:
First off, how can you forcefully give anyone any faith? Beyond that, I'm not saying anyone in this particular thread is attacking anyone's religion ... I have on several occasions asked people why they were Atheists and dug deeper (past the "Because I don't believe in god" comments that are essentially a restating of their religion) and have yet to meet someone who doesn't have the argument devolve into a rant on how evil other religions are (typically with a heavy focus on the Catholic Church). |
It is comparatively easy to " force" someone to have faith, believe in God, to believe in one particualr religion.
See my previous words on the subject in my response to my first quoted object. Also, I am afraid the reason that so many debates devolve in to what seems like a "rant at religion" is purely because religion has been a major (if not the main) instigator in a large amount of humanities suffering since what are effectively prehistoric times. I'm not saying that religion hasn't done some good things (For Example the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is sublime in its wonder) but that its negatives far outweigh the positives it has brought.
HappySqurriel said:
Well then, explain why you believe that no god exists?
|
I can answer this question for myself fairly easily.
1: Natural selection - It requires a crane style evolutionary system to create the illusion of design. Small advantageous changes to species that make them more likely to survive, this can appear to be "designed" but this is purely a human problem, it's mostly because we are so used to seeing designed things around us and we have done ever since we gained consciousness. Usually i hear "But what use is half an eye?" at this point so I'll be slightly more specific by posting a link that explains this far more eloquently than i can - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.html
2: God cannot have simply "just have existed and always been here" any more than a hurricane could rip through a scrapyard and assemble a complete Boeing 747. In this situation God would be infinitely more complex and infinitely larger than any concievable object.
3: People often argue that God exists because of "Good and Evil" they often also use this same logic to rationalise Satan. Because God MUST be pure Good, Satan MUST be pure Evil. I personally believe that "Good" and "Evil" are neccesary for species survival.
For Example: If we went round "parasatising" one another to support ourselves we would never have invented any farm tools and would still effectively be animals, therefore a certain amount of selflessness is a survival trait.
If we went around killing each other with no remorse we would have wiped ourselves out before we'd even set foot on the ladder to civilisation, hence not killing other humans for sport is a survival trait.
EDIT ADD EDIT ADD EDIT ADD EDIT
Kasz216 said:
He means mathematically perfect. Like how it was possible to predict elements in the perodic table before they were discovered etc.
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The universe IS not perfect, but i can understand how it would seem to be. After all, it's "perfect" enough for us to be here.
However - If the conditions in the universe had been different in various ways, who knows if anything would be here? The odds are that something would though, even if it was a unique confined event as we at the moment seem to be.
The odds are that anyone who DID exist in this hypothetical other unverse would also believe that the particular balance of their universe would be the only likely one for life to exist in.
Also: The colour and composition of the natural elements (IE. Those that can occur naturally as opposed to those created by a man made nuclear reaction) could be predicted because of the way that atoms, molecules and matter in general works. It also helped that the scientist who predicted the composition of such elements had elements that WERE known on hand to study in order to make his predictions which were later proved correct. For more about the History of the periodic table read more here - http://www.rsc.org/education/teachers/learnnet/periodictable/pre16/develop/mendeleev.htm
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Ill leave this here. Hopefully my answers have been respectful enough to not drive anyone insane and smart and rational enough to have people question their beliefs a little more, for if there is a God he would be the ultimate scientist and wouldn't hold a very high regard for unquestioning minds or ignorance! :D
"Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask you is a trick. You will find no truth in me."
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