How Christian Fundamentalists Plan to Teach Genocide to Schoolchildren

[The Weeb with No Name]

What better way to keep the control of religion nice and firm than sewing doubt into the analytical thinking that unravels it.

Honestly, if God is fucked up by our meager standards, imagine how He stacks up against the perfect standard. I wouldn't even subjugate my Sims to the kind of system God is working with.

Edited June 8, 2012 by Jayhawker30

[SuperStingray]

Even if I were to believe in an intelligent divine creator, I couldn't believe he's flawless or perfect. Aside from the obvious paradoxes the idea of omnipotence presents, he would have no reason to create us; if you could play a game of chess and be allowed to set the rules yourself such that you could checkmate your opponent on the first turn, why even bother playing? In a perfect world, we'd have no desires or fears to express and thus there would be no art. We'd know everything we'd need to know about the universe, both in terms of practicality and curiosity, and thus there would be no science. So if that's the nature of God's existence, there would be no gaps in his life that he would need us to fill. But yet here we are. People can say God works in mysterious ways, but I want to know why he works at all.

[Indigo Rush]

Alright, then if God plans to judge the very humans that he/it/whatever created, then why did it give people free will to make those very choices that disappoint it//her/him instead of allowing the creations to conform to the same very ideals and morals as the creator?

I don't know, I think that it's pretty meaningless to create meat-robots that mindlessly worship you. If it's against their own will, then what's the point? The ability to choose incorrectly, as it were, is a natural byproduct for that.

[DGam'r]

Alright, then if God plans to judge the very humans that he/it/whatever created, then why did it give people free will to make those very choices that disappoint it//her/him instead of allowing the creations to conform to the same very ideals and morals as the creator?

First, God wanted to create us because the world was bare, Well second, Adam and Eve sinned. If Adam and Eve didn't eat the fruit from the forbidden tree we all would be happy and none of this violence, murder, etc. would be happening.

[The Weeb with No Name]

I... don't think that answers much of anything.

[SchemingMinor]

First, God wanted to create us because the world was bare, Well second, Adam and Eve sinned. If Adam and Eve didn't eat the fruit from the forbidden tree we all would be happy and none of this violence, murder, etc. would be happening.

Yeah, this answers absolutely nothing, and I feel like if I do answer it I am taking some sort of forum bait.

Adam and Eve aren't even real coming from nothing more than a story that has been deducted by scholars to find elements of Sumerian and Mesopotamian creation origin elements ( a lot of religions tend to borrow heavily off of predecessors) - there is no physical proof of Adam and Eve, and even then basing all of the world's problems and plights on this creation story doesn't really tell me anything about what I asked above.

So thus you are also saying that I as a woman wouldn't be menstruating if Eve didn't sin, right? Because that's the Christian lore behind a woman's period as punishment for Eve's "sins."

Where do other religion creation stories then fall through in this thought? Are they false because they do not have this creation story and thus this one is the only pure and true story?

I don't know, I think that it's pretty meaningless to create meat-robots that mindlessly worship you. If it's against their own will, then what's the point? The ability to choose incorrectly, as it were, is a natural byproduct for that.

Isn't that kind of redundant coming from the Judo-Christian perspective of "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." and " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Wouldn't solving that problem mean that one would install the instinct to only worship that creator and nothing else because it decrees itself as a jealous deity?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Kintobor

[SuperStingray]

Isn't that kind of redundant coming from the Judo-Christian perspective of "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." Wouldn't solving that problem mean that one would install the instinct to only worship that creator and nothing else because it decrees itself as a jealous deity?

The bigger question is if envy is one of the seven deadly sins, why does God have it? Talk about your role models...

[The Weeb with No Name]

*Don't try that bullshit "there can be no good without evil" line. You can enjoy eating a cookie without having to know that a molted slab of rock is your alternative.

Looking back on this post, I wonder about the implications of what Stingray put forward to refute the concepts of eternal bounty in heaven and eternal suffering in hell. That, with nothing to compare it to, either or simply becomes the norm, neither bad or good.

I don't get eternal damnation; it's almost literally beating a dead horse- God doesn't need to punish us if there's nothing to learn from it. Besides, after a certain point you'll almost certainly get used to it, whether its reward or punishment; punishment only feels bad if the condition is worse than a given "norm;" with eternity being the idea it is, you'll almost certainly forget what life was like before it and accept it. Same with people in heaven; eventually you'll get used to life being paradise and it will no longer please you. The only way for heaven and hell to actually mean anything is for the inhabitants to switch places every now and then, pretty much eliminating the point of both altogether.

To me, it seems that Stingray's logic flies in the face of Emerald's assertion that you can appreciate the good in things without also appreciating the worse alternative, be that a "molted slab of rock" or, simply, not having a cookie at all.

I mean, sure that cookie would taste great for a change of pace to your regular dull meals, but eating nothing but those cookies would make them, themselves, also dull. Just as well, a person who had spent a prolonged period of time just sucking on molten slabs of rock would appreciate those cookies all the more because of it.

How does one appreciate the "good" without weighing it against the "bad" or "mundane"?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Jayhawker30

[DGam'r]

Yeah, this answers absolutely nothing, and I feel like if I do answer it I am taking some sort of forum bait.

Adam and Eve aren't even real coming from nothing more than a story that has been deducted by scholars to find elements of Sumerian and Mesopotamian creation origin elements ( a lot of religions tend to borrow heavily off of predecessors) - there is no physical proof of Adam and Eve, and even then basing all of the world's problems and plights on this creation story doesn't really tell me anything about what I asked above.

Ok...but what I'm saying is the truth hands down. Plus that was 10s of thousands years ago.

So thus you are also saying that I as a woman wouldn't be menstruating if Eve didn't sin, right? Because that's the Christian lore behind a woman's period as punishment for Eve's "sins."

Where do other religion creation stories then fall through in this thought? Are they false because they do not have this creation story and thus this one is the only pure and true story?

No...and where did you get that story about a woman's period for being a sin...because I never heard of that before.

Hmm Religion Creation Stories:

God creating the heavens, Earth, etc.

No they aren't false and that's the creation story I put about this sentence you want the whole scripture:

Genesis 1

1In the beginning when God created^* the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^* swept over the face of the waters. ³Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. ⁴And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.⁵God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

6 And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ ⁷So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, ‘Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. ¹⁰God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so. ¹²The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.’ ²¹So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.’ And it was so. ²⁵God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind^* in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^* and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’

²⁷ So God created humankind^* in his image,

in the image of God he created them;^*

male and female he created them.

²⁸God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ ²⁹God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. ³¹God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

...think about it...this world won't last forever. That's it, not trying to get in an argument just making a statement

Edited June 8, 2012 by DaGamer14

[JezMM]

The three hypothetical reasons you gave don't sufficiently cover it, but they're related.

When it comes to the concept of Hell seeming unfair, or God's perfect standard seeming unreasonable, I'll point to this as the basis for my response:

(Etc).

You put it pretty clearly there, and I understand a lot better now, even though I still will never believe in the same interpretation of God you do.

The idea that anything good I do will never be good enough, that God not only looks down upon the good people of the world but that he does it by choice and his own design.

The idea of having that hanging over me in everything I do honestly would make life not worth living for me.

Not to mention other implications, for example the comforting thought that my very recently deceased best friend is burning in hell forever right now because she was an athiest, despite the fact that she was a loving, selfless person from all I knew of her. Gee God thanks for that one I sure wanna everylastingly love you now! Honestly as I mentioned earlier, it is my need to believe in an afterlife where I will one day see all my loved ones again that keeps my faith alive through thick and thin. But if half of them are all burning in hell I'd rather there be nothing after I die than that afterlife.

Essentially I guess I'm just unwilling to accept that anything other than a mean-spirited person would so cruelly design a world in which his subjects must live and worship him unquestionally despite an incapacity to understand his wraths or die and be subjected to eternal torture as the alternative. That is still just an absoloutely horrible thing to imagine as being the be-all-end-all of the universe.

And yes, I know, I'm judging him by human standards. But that's all he gave me to judge by.

To me, it seems that Stingray's logic flies in the face of Emerald's assertion that you can appreciate the good in things without also appreciating the worse alternative, be that a "molted slab of rock" or, simply, not having a cookie at all.

I mean, sure that cookie would taste great for a change of pace to your regular dull meals, but eating nothing but those cookies would make them, themselves, also dull. Just as well, a person who had spent a prolonged period of time just sucking on molten slabs of rock would appreciate those cookies all the more because of it.

How does one appreciate the "good" without weighing it against the "bad" or "mundane"?

To respond to this, nowadays I have the intelligence to not really know what to expect, but if I had to hazard a guess, and IF heaven and hell are real (to clarify, my belief in how Hell comes into my "all-loving God" theory is that it is nothing more than Bible propaganda to scare people into worshipping God regardless of if they want to or not)...

I would expand the cookie example to say that the stereotypical idea of heaven and hell would see not eternal pleasure or eternal pain but an observation of a spectrum of pleasure and pain.

That is to say, in hell you would not get used to it because one day you'd have nails jammed in your eyes and the next you'd have to crawl across a desert with no water. Day after that perhaps an hour of being hugged by people you really don't like. Then Thursday... I'm thinking desert again but this time you have alligators on your feet.

Meanwhile in heaven, you wouldn't just eat cookies every day. Today sure we have cookies on the menu but you can also go hang out with your deceased pets, oh and we have every video game ever to play, including the ones you just wanted but weren't real! What's that, you're bored of cookies? CAKE TIME!

Edited June 8, 2012 by JezMM

[DGam'r]

Essentially I guess I'm just unwilling to accept that anything other than a mean-spirited person would so cruelly design a world in which his subjects must live and worship him unquestionally despite an incapacity to understand his wraths or die and be subjected to eternal torture as the alternative. That is still just an absoloutely horrible thing to imagine as being the be-all-end-all of the universe.

That's why Jesus came so we all won't goto Hell when we died, that's what happened to many people in the Old Testament. And Christians don't have to must live and worship him. They have a choice. Just like you have a choice. I'll show you a bad example of spreading the word the wrong way:

Edited June 8, 2012 by DaGamer14

[TheGerkuman]

The thing to note is that 'human standards' is not a set thing, but depends on peoples beliefs and philosophies and also the situations that define them. Under a humanistic worldview, God would indeed seem monstrous, but to assume that worldview is not only right but also should be applicable to everyone is a bit much, in my opinion. Especially since, in my view, there are many flaws to it. But I think that's another topic entirely.

Edit: And yes, I know the irony of me saying that when I believe in a proselytising religion. I don't expect anyone to have the same worldview as I do, and to force it on others appalls me.

Edited June 8, 2012 by Gerkuman

[JezMM]

That's why Jesus came so we all won't goto Hell when we died, that's what happened to many people in the Old Testament.

If I'm honest I've never really understood the whole Jesus thing either.

How did him coming erase sin? How did him dying erase sin? What exactly did he... "do"?

What exactly changed between him coming and going that made all sinners before unforgivable and hell-bound and gave all sinners after a bit more leeway?

Edited June 8, 2012 by JezMM

[DGam'r]

If I'm honest I've never really understood the whole Jesus thing either.

How did him coming erase sin? How did him dying erase sin? What exactly did he... "do"?

What exactly changed between him coming and going that made all sinners before unforgivable and hell-bound and gave all sinners after a bit more leeway?

Well I'll explain and see if you understand

1: He came to erase sin through the Virgin Mary.

2: The blood he shed was for everyone also it erased the burden for everyone going to Hell instead of heaven. If he didn't come this world would be in pretty bad shape

3: Well He healed the sick, raised the dead, and he also taught and preached.

4. Same as number 2

Does that help?

[JezMM]

Well I'll explain and see if you understand

1: He came to erase sin through the Virgin Mary.

2: The blood he shed was for everyone also it erased the burden for everyone going to Hell instead of heaven. If he didn't come this world would be in pretty bad shape

3: Well He healed the sick, raised the dead, and he also taught and preached.

4. Same as number 2

Does that help?

I still don't really get it. Jesus' bloodshed erased sin because...?

All I'm really getting so far is:

"God, why did Jesus erase sin?"

"Because Jesus came to erase sin by dying."

"But... why did you decide that your son dying would erase sin?"

"Because I am God and that's what I decided."

"But... why."

"Because of reasons."

I know half the point of faith is not questioning these things but... that just makes me want to ask why we can't question things. If we are but children before God then God is one of those really annoying parents who never tells their kid anything when they ask. >8C

[DGam'r]

If Jesus didn't die for our sins we would all live in a world of fear, violence, etc. It would be horrible than the world we're living in now. We have a choice though. Heaven or Hell

[The Weeb with No Name]

I would expand the cookie example to say that the stereotypical idea of heaven and hell would see not eternal pleasure or eternal pain but an observation of a spectrum of pleasure and pain.

That is to say, in hell you would not get used to it because one day you'd have nails jammed in your eyes and the next you'd have to crawl across a desert with no water. Day after that perhaps an hour of being hugged by people you really don't like. Then Thursday... I'm thinking desert again but this time you have alligators on your feet.

Meanwhile in heaven, you wouldn't just eat cookies every day. Today sure we have cookies on the menu but you can also go hang out with your deceased pets, oh and we have every video game ever to play, including the ones you just wanted but weren't real! What's that, you're bored of cookies? CAKE TIME!

Edited June 8, 2012 by Jayhawker30

[JezMM]

If Jesus didn't die for our sins we would all live in a world of fear, violence, etc. It would be horrible than the world we're living in now. We have a choice though. Heaven or Hell

[Dr. Mechano]

If I'm honest I've never really understood the whole Jesus thing either.

How did him coming erase sin? How did him dying erase sin? What exactly did he... "do"?

What exactly changed between him coming and going that made all sinners before unforgivable and hell-bound and gave all sinners after a bit more leeway?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Dr. Mechano

[JezMM]

Like before Mechano I very much appreciate your posts and your ability to explain and respond to my difficult questions on stuff which can only use faith as evidence. I understand Jesus' purpose a lot clearer now.

[DGam'r]

Like before Mechano I very much appreciate your posts and your ability to explain and respond to my difficult questions on stuff which can only use faith as evidence. I understand Jesus' purpose a lot clearer now.

[TheGerkuman]

If you'd like another intepretation:

In the OT the people of Israel used to sacrifice animals which had nothing physically wrong with them. That was a sign that they were sorry, and through it God absolved them. But it was a temporary thing, since animals can't do right or wrong and it only atoned for the previous sins. Each time they did something wrong, they had to do it all over again.

Then Jesus arrived and, according to the Bible, never sinned. Thus, when he was crucified, he became a 'perfect sacrifice' and anyone who believed in him didn't have to sacrifice anything anymore. Also, it let the part of God that works through people (called the Holy Spirit) into people's lives, so people had a direct connection to God.

Dunno if that was much of a summary, and each denomination has different takes on it (I'm assuming DaGamer is Catholic for instance, Protestants tend not to focus on the saints or Mary).

Edited June 8, 2012 by Gerkuman

[Stacy]

I know half the point of faith is not questioning these things but...

[DGam'r]

That is why I hate it, because you not supposed to questioned it, but why?

Who the hell is blind enough not to question it?

I'll never forget the time I sat on a priest's knee (not like that your dirty bastards) when I was 7 and ask "Why does God let Wars happen" and he said "well come to church and you will learn".

Fuck that, I wanted a straight fucking answer and he couldn't give me one.

As I child I used to pray and I would never get any answers. After 9/11 and my uncles death I gave up on God and realized that their is no God and even if their is God he must really despise his creation to not care any more.

Maybe God and the Devil are the same thing?

[Dr. Mechano]

Protestants tend not to focus on the saints or Mary