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Forums - General Discussion - Doe it really matter if God exists or not...?

 

I am

Theist 96 20.25%
 
Atheist 178 37.55%
 
Agnostic 96 20.25%
 
Spiritual but non theist 29 6.12%
 
Other 32 6.75%
 
God. 43 9.07%
 
Total:474
o_O.Q on 02 July 2017
Cerebralbore101 said:
o_O.Q said:

 

i wasn't talking specifically about the bible with regards to why god is important for morality

but regardless i do believe a lot of the stories in the bible are misinterpreted and are allegories for deeper meanings that we've lost comprehension of

What is your objective method of determining which parts of the bible are allegory, and which parts are literal? 

 

its not my method, its the method that produced the ancient stories about gods to begin with and we call it the scientific method now in the science field

 

patterns of behavior are observed over a long period of time repetitively to determine which behaviors lead to prosperity

i think at least partially the bible is the result of people forming these observations into stories for digestion by as large a portion of the population as possible

 

of course the bible has been changed and manipulated since its creation but i don't think anyone can deny that there are some important values within it

 

but regardless this is not primarily about the bible but about which values are best for people, the bible simply beling an example of one method to preserve some of these values



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Cerebralbore101 on 02 July 2017
numberwang said:
JWeinCom said:

Yeah, I got my times wrong.  For some reason I was counting from 1 CE.  Still, even several years is enough for a story to be distorted.

Paul converses with Peter and James (brother of Jesus), the latter became the first leader of the church of Jerusalem, so there were authority figures to validate teachings.

I'm pretty sure that all comes secondhand from 2nd century Heterodox leaders. Of course they would have said that. They needed to show that their brand of christianity was better than the heritcal sects of christianity. What better way to do that, than claim that their brand of christianity originated from Jesus' original disciples? 



jonager on 02 July 2017

I am an atheist, if gods exist or not it doesn't matter. What matters is that we don't allow religious fanatics to dictate our laws and how we should live our lives. Separation of church and state, that's all I ask for.



TheLight on 02 July 2017
Cerebralbore101 said:
Peh said:

God should have taught the hebrews how to write so they wouldn't look like plagiarists.

He gave them Oral Tradition which is far more accurrate than modern writing. You see, Oral Tradition wasn't like the game of telephone at all. In ancient Hebrew society aspiring priests were made to memorize every story word by word, before becoming a priest. After becoming a priest if they told the story differently by just a single word, they were executed. And luckily for the Hebrews, God also gave them a langauge which was so perfect that it remained the same over a thousand years. Unlike poor primitive english which has older versions that modern people can barely understand (shakespeare), ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew are IDENTICAL! And that's why they could pass the flood story down through the ages without changing a single word, and still understand it perfectly hundreds of years later! We know all this thanks to the hard work of proffessor I.M. Right from Baby Jesus University. 

Ok real talk time. 

There's more proof from 2000 years ago. Jesus predicted the world was going to end before the lifetimes of his original followers ended. This is recorded in the Mini-Apocalypse of Mathew, Mark and Luke. Obviously the world is still turning and Jesus was wrong. But if he was wrong he wasn't God. 

He also  said But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,[a] but My Father only. 

Matthew 24:36  Things are never simple everything can be misunderstood.



o_O.Q on 02 July 2017
HintHRO said:
o_O.Q said:

I didn't say anything about the bible but i do believe that a lot of the information in the bible is misinterpreted

and yes we've now tilted from excluding lgbt people to going after white male people... so truly nothing has changed since it is in man's nature to be conpassionate to his "kin" and antagonistic to those outside of their preffered social grouping

which is why a concept beyond man's scope is useful in terms of moral structures

You can't misinterpret leviticus 20:13. ''Misinterpretation'' is a common term used by religious people to make up for the awful things that are described in their holy book. The things we ''misinterpretate'' were taken seriously in the middle ages and before and religious extremists still do take it seriously these days. You can't say they are wrong, since they literally do what the bible is telling them. It makes them even better people in the eyes of God according to that logic.

The Old and New testament are rules made up by people because they knew the things described in the bible do not correlate with us anymore. People would lose faith without the Old/New testament excuse. Never did God show his face through the clouds and said ''I did some epic thinking about the bible last night with Hey There Delilah on the background and now for no reason I'll punish you if you follow these parts of the bible''

Morality changes, always, with or without God. This is because we change and continue to change. 

 

yes they literally do what they read... have you ever heard of a metaphor?

as an example i value the story of the coming out of ignorance of adam and eve in the garden of eden

 

but i don't really think that story is reffering to an actual snake talking to eve

 

i think what that story represents is man becoming intelligent and self aware (as opposed to lacking awareness like animals) and the consequences that had for man with regards to how man interacted with the environment around them



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Cerebralbore101 on 02 July 2017
o_O.Q said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

What is your objective method of determining which parts of the bible are allegory, and which parts are literal? 

 

its not my method, its the method that produced the ancient stories about gods to begin with and we call it the scientific method now in the science field

 

patterns of behavior are observed over a long period of time repetitively to determine which behaviors lead to prosperity

i think at least partially the bible is the result of people forming these observations into stories for digestion by as large a portion of the population as possible

 

of course the bible has been changed and manipulated since its creation but i don't think anyone can deny that there are some important values within it

 

but regardless this is not primarily about the bible but about which values are best for people, the bible simply beling an example of one method to preserve some of these values

Wait, so the method that produced the ancient stories was the scientific method? What? How exactly would you use the scientific method to winnow factual stories from allegorical stories? What hypothesis do you start with? What's your method of testing said hypothesis? 



Cerebralbore101 on 02 July 2017
TheLight said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

He gave them Oral Tradition which is far more accurrate than modern writing. You see, Oral Tradition wasn't like the game of telephone at all. In ancient Hebrew society aspiring priests were made to memorize every story word by word, before becoming a priest. After becoming a priest if they told the story differently by just a single word, they were executed. And luckily for the Hebrews, God also gave them a langauge which was so perfect that it remained the same over a thousand years. Unlike poor primitive english which has older versions that modern people can barely understand (shakespeare), ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew are IDENTICAL! And that's why they could pass the flood story down through the ages without changing a single word, and still understand it perfectly hundreds of years later! We know all this thanks to the hard work of proffessor I.M. Right from Baby Jesus University. 

Ok real talk time. 

There's more proof from 2000 years ago. Jesus predicted the world was going to end before the lifetimes of his original followers ended. This is recorded in the Mini-Apocalypse of Mathew, Mark and Luke. Obviously the world is still turning and Jesus was wrong. But if he was wrong he wasn't God. 

He also  said But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,[a] but My Father only. 

Matthew 24:36  Things are never simple everything can be misunderstood.

You can't know that day or the hour, but you can still know the general timeframe. Let's suppose I say that there will be thunderstorm in your city on thursday, but nobody know the exact time it will happen. But then thursday comes and goes and there isn't a thunderstorm at all. I'm still a false prophet, regardless of me saying that nobody knows the exact time it will happen. 



o_O.Q on 02 July 2017
Cerebralbore101 said:
o_O.Q said:

 

its not my method, its the method that produced the ancient stories about gods to begin with and we call it the scientific method now in the science field

 

patterns of behavior are observed over a long period of time repetitively to determine which behaviors lead to prosperity

i think at least partially the bible is the result of people forming these observations into stories for digestion by as large a portion of the population as possible

 

of course the bible has been changed and manipulated since its creation but i don't think anyone can deny that there are some important values within it

 

but regardless this is not primarily about the bible but about which values are best for people, the bible simply beling an example of one method to preserve some of these values

Wait, so the method that produced the ancient stories was the scientific method? What? How exactly would you use the scientific method to winnow factual stories from allegorical stories? What hypothesis do you start with? What's your method of testing said hypothesis? 

did you not read what i just posted?

the scientific method is to observe a particular phenomenon multiple times to ensure that the end result is always the same

 

for example if you throw a ball you can be fairly sure ( not absolutely sure ) that the ball will fall to the ground due to gravity - agree?

 

we've determined as a result that there's something causing objects to accelerate towards the earth's surface and now we call that a law something we can be fairly certain is concrete

 

i'm saying that the same thing applies to human behavior - we can analyse different ways of living life and determine over time which ways of living life lead to prosperity and which lead to ruin

 

over time we can then determine which values man should live by for prosperity - the difference here is that a method to communicate these values to the widest portion of the population possible has to be devised

 

and I think that in the past people realised that encoding values into stories and associating them wtih gods was the easiest way to have people digest these values and that's where books like the bible in part came from

 

you have such a visceral reaction to the idea that the scientific method can be associated with these concepts that you aren't even looking at what i'm posting



Qwark on 02 July 2017
o_O.Q said:
Qwark said:

Works fine these days if anything I digest gid morality because it stands in the way of medical advancement. Wasn't it moral during the dark ages to impregnate a minor btw. So be glad morals change over time because you don't want to live in a age which had the exact same morals as during the dark ages.

 

well I suppose you'll think that way until you are the one that ends up being oppressed... what makes you think btw that the human race will never reach a time in the future where our morals are corrupted to the point they were in the middle ages?

I don't think The Western Europe will ever become a state where it's morally accepted to impregnate minors. Marry a minor or even to own one, justify crusades and genocides in the name of God.Not to mention public executions for fun and the witch hunts. Which whete all perfectly moral things yo do in the dark ages. Besides wheren't the dark ages a time in which the church had way more influence and thus the moral being way closer to god morals than these days in Western Europe. I think the LGBT people are also pretty content with shifting moralities. As for why I think Western Europe will never degrade to that. The only reason to give up all morals is during war time and Europe will simply not survive WW3 and it will be a radiated wasteland after WW3 in 2100 or 2200.



Please excuse my (probally) poor grammar

o_O.Q on 02 July 2017
Qwark said:
o_O.Q said:

 

well I suppose you'll think that way until you are the one that ends up being oppressed... what makes you think btw that the human race will never reach a time in the future where our morals are corrupted to the point they were in the middle ages?

I don't think The Western Europe will ever become a state where it's morally accepted to impregnate minors. Marry a minor or even to own one, justify crusades and genocides in the name of God. Not to mention public executions for fun and the witch hunts. Which whete all perfectly moral things yo do in the dark ages. Besides wheren't the dark ages a time in which the church had way more influence and thus the moral being way closer to god morals than these days in Western Europe. I think the LGBT people are also pretty content with shifting moralities.

 

"I don't think The Western Europe will ever become a state where it's morally accepted to impregnate minors"


well.. i disagree with you i think things are perfectly capable of shifting morally to the point where that can happen again

 

" Marry a minor or even to own one, justify crusades and genocides in the name of God. Not to mention public executions for fun and the witch hunts. Which whete all perfectly moral things yo do in the dark ages. "

 

so let me guess you think that evil comes from the concept of god? and if there is no god to follow then man can be perfectly moral?

well i disagree with you but i will agree that the concept of a god has caused endless suffering in the past when it was used for evil

,but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a positive purpose