Religion is Silly Fairy Tales

I don’t want God in the schools. I want God in my life, in my home, and in my church.

 

I generally avoid discussing religion here at PF, but you've caught my attention with your first post in the thread:

You are the one that brought leadership into this discussion:

"What leader scrapes the soul and says there is no God but me."

Why did you write this and what exactly does it mean? Are these your own words? If not, who are you quoting?

The best understanding I can manage when reading this statement is that it asks a question regarding a leader that has such influence among his people that he scrapes their souls and claims himself to be God. He does not touch their souls, no he scrapes them - meaning that he damages their souls. At least that is how I read those words.

And then that this leader "says there is no God but me," describes quite a few of Trump's assertions and those of many of his supporters. The list is long of html references available to document this pop culture reality show host's comic parody executing such a concept all but verbatim to this phrase you've written here.

For example,
https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/donald-trump-i-am-the-chosen-one

And the rest of your first post in this thread - what exactly are you trying to say in plain words without all the dramatic knights of the round table bullshit? Are you saying, for example, that without Christianity then there is no chance that our Courts are capable of delivering Justice? And God - who is God since you claim to be Christian why are you not posting about Christ rather than God?

***

Do you even realize that what you have written with this post is an assertion that you believe what you believe because God himself has delivered directly to you your core knowledge and basis for your faith? Your beliefs then are unassailable in your own mind since you have a direct connection to God himself - what mere mortal could possibly refute your faith? This is not Christianity, or Islam, or Juadism or even Mormonism. It is not Scientology. It is nothing other than your very own religion, dependent completely upon your private connection with God. Christianity posits that the path to God is only available through faith in Christ. It offers no opportunity for any of it's adherents to communicate directly with God - of what value was Christ's sacrifice upon the cross if 2000+ years later some dude living in Florida can directly know the mind of God all on his own?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you let your passion in your faith get out a little bit ahead of you with this post, assuming that you still claim Christianity as your religion.

***
Nice of you to reference the Gospels. I don't get your use of fwiw or why you have to estimate the meaning of the Gospels about being rich, wealthy or having lots of money. Three of the four Gospels are perfectly clear about the subject:

https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/19.htm

https://biblehub.com/niv/mark/10.htm

https://biblehub.com/niv/luke/18.htm

And there is plenty more where this came from, for example:

https://biblehub.com/niv/matthew/6.htm

You place your own opinion and your own truth above that of the New Testament? Please, provide a reference from the New Testament to support your assertions:

"wealth is neither a sin nor a prerequisite for salvation."

"there is as much wickedness among the poor as among the rich."

"And true wealth and poverty is a matter of heart."

What is this then if you cannot provide references from the New Testament?

The Gospel of Injeun?

Or are you quoting someone who you failed to give credit for your opinions?

***
Let me be perfectly clear - I have no desire to challenge your faith, but when you choose to engage on a public forum about your beliefs and the glaring lack of consistency between the actual plain language present in the New Testament versus stuff you seem perfectly confident to just make up on your own and on top of it all plying the same tired crap from other self proclaimed Christians who support Trump about electing a political leader rather than a spiritual leader is plainly weak and dishonest. You folks claim to belong to a religion that places more value on the soul's continued existence as an exact image of it's living ego, expressed as life after death as a reward for living a life according to the precepts of the religion. And yet you dismiss the precepts required by this religion of its adherents to enter the kingdom of heaven for a leader that clearly represents the complete antithesis of almost all of the religion's precepts.

What did Christ have to say about this type of behavior? He said it would be better for you type of folks to have a millstone tied around your neck and be cast into the depths of the oceans than to mislead the children regarding the precepts of the way of the Christ. Would that not logically apply to those who attempt to mislead the parents of the children?

Lies and falsehoods about the religion and about the nature of your horrid orange golden gilded god are all I see from the context of your posts on these subjects.

 

No further comment regarding the company you keep in your support of Trump, eh, @JET3534

 

You seem obsessed with Trump. Do we sense a little jealousy?

 

We? How many people are you?

 

We are legend.

 

I was referring to the mentality of the Karl Marx quote devaluing religion in the OP.

Of course I realize it. I'm the one who said it. What, God cannot speak for himself to another? How else can one know that God lives and is real? Or that he has established his Church, called and empowered his laborers to teach his Gospel of salvation if God himself by his spirit does not bear witness to it. Can one behold a light that does not shine. Do you think that Gods words and miracles are finished or simply the scribblings in a book from long ago? Where has he been all this time? Do you think God is locked in the pages like a genie, conjured by the reader and kept safe on a mantle or dresser. God is not dead. He lives.

Matthew 16 15-18
He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

 

I would be happy to discuss Trump or Trump supporters in one of the other sections of PF. I prefer to stick to religion in this section of the forum. Obviously my religious views are somewhat atypical for a conservative -- but I guess it is what it is.

 

Interesting details. What is the source of that info?

 

marxism IS a religion, he replaced your religion with his own branded religion, atheist.

Abstract
Russian Marxism has been called a religion, or compatible with religion, by many laymen as well as theologians. This paper attempts to find acceptable definitions of religion and of Russian Marxism, and goes on to show that, in terms of these, Russian Marxism, on the one hand can be called a religion and,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1385258


.

 

Although there are similarities between different "ways of Life" - Religion is a way of life as is Marxism .. Marxism is not a religion.
Sure you can claim that the cult around the leader is like a religion - but there are distinct differences related the presense or absence of a diety .. and/or the nature of the diefication.

 

since when is a deity 'required' to be a religion, citation please

 

Since I said so . See above citation

 

I sort of alluded to the idea that saying there is no God is to place oneself in Gods stead. But in fact Marx is just a man speaking his mind, though more aggressively than merely to a query. I think that a religion is an organized set of beliefs. Atheism at is base is not an organized set of beliefs. It is simply to be, to be born, to live, to love, to work, play, explore and meet the necessities of life. It is the absence of religion and the supernatural. It is neutrality and innocence, the foundation of all mankind, imo. In following, Atheism is constructed or built in ones soul by the prodding's of theists. It is sort of a forced retort, like an umbrella to the rain. Does that make one a one dimensional umbrella man or simply one who wishes not to be wet. In the end we are all Magoo's, feeling our way around, trying to make sense of things. And Atheism, rather than a religion, is the failure of the self righteous pompous asses who parade their religions with drums and trumpets, who hide the truth and turn away the hungry, because all they really are about is self promotion. So it follows reason that if Atheists are Atheists because of all the fake theists. Then whatever loss or damnation threatened upon Atheists by the self righteous will fall upon the self righteous themselves. So judgment is best reserved to God, and brotherhood given sway. I am uncomfortable with your efforts to put Atheists in a box, like some sort of specimen or Zoo creature. I say this because I do know, follow, and believe in a living God. We are not one anothers overlords. Such is the voice of America's Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and birth as a nation in proof of mans essential equality, liberated imo by the hand of God. Though Atheists would say liberated by way of reason. Either way, we are free. So whether by reason or by God, it is cause to celebrate and abide in kind the cause of our liberty, ever near and dear to our hearts, our advocate in truth.

 

I agree that religions are an attempt by man to organize a set of issues - keeping this rather abstract here, obviously.

However, those who believe in gods don't have any way to test their beliefs - exactly like atheists don't have that.

If such a method of testing religion were possible, humans would use that method to coalesce around one particular religion and in fact to seriously reduce the number of denominations of each. The result would be dramatic in terms of reducing conflict, confirming practices of government, etc.

In Christianity, the Bible is actually explicit about this inability of humans - who have to accept god on faith alone and who have no way of testing the god they choose to accept.

 

Why does an atheist need a test? We live our lives in the absence of any evidence that there is a god. If such evidence were ever presented we could test that.

I have never heard of anyone having to have a test for non-evidence. There is no onus to prove the non-existence of something it’s impossible
The very fact that it’s impossible is one way you can conclude that there is no God!

I am an atheist because there is no evidence of God so I live on as though there is no God.
Let those who make a claim that there is a god test their evidence.

The entire claim that atheism is a religion rests on the self-focus of the Theist mindset.

let’s apply it to other things we have no evidence of.
We have no evidence of leprechauns therefore anyone who does not believe in leprechauns are part of a non-leprecaunian religion.
We have no evidence of aliens so anyone who doesn’t believe in aliens is part of a non-alien religion.
We have no evidence of Hanuman so anyone who doesn’t believe in Hanuman is part of some anti-hanuman religion.
It’s dumb!

Look, you guys love Jesus. Good for you. I don’t see any evidence or line of reasoning that makes that worthwhile to me so I don’t bother.
I don’t have a set of friends that I stick with because of that. I practice no rituals because of that. I have no particular morals because of that. I have no meeting place to go to because of that. It’s a big fat zero!

I am not defined by what I am not. I am defined by what I am.

I don’t even mind that others want to say atheism is a religion. Go ahead. What I don’t like is when you explain your perspective to someone and they act like you are stupid because it’s not their perspective.

Broaden your perspective people! Some of you act like you are God.

 

There is no delete post option?

 

As an atheist, I fully agree that atheism is absolutely NOT a religion. And, yes there are a lot of those who would like to make claims about what I believe, and that is weird, to say the least.

However, the fact that we can not prove there is no god such as commonly defined doesn't mean that there isn't one.

A god such as the one described in the Bible can't be tested by man. Even the Bible says that the god described there must be taken purely on faith.

So, we have some giant number of religions and variants of those religions based on a god - because there is no possibility of testing any of them. Thus people get to fight it out with everything they have, from ridiculous logic to lethal weapons.

 

Very much so, and I agree with those who consider Marxists/Communists/Socialists a cult. I presume this is why the late great French philosopher Jean-François Revel referred to them as the Cult of Fiasco in his book Last Exit to Utopia.

As I'm sure you're aware, more than a few commentators have written at great length about this, and one of the more interesting observations I've read is the striking similarity between the utopian Marxist fantasy of creating heaven on earth and the Judeo-Christian fantasy of re-entering the Biblical Garden of Eden.

 

It’s unfalsifiable.

I actually have more respect for the claim, “hey there is no evidence of God but I choose to believe that he exists anyway,” than the claim “God is real, I can prove it because [insert fake science here] and now I am going to form a committee to tell everyone how to live their life. “

 

Quantum physics indicates that the basis of your physical existence and ambient environment is entirely subjective but subject to the more likely fitting probability. Standard objective physical science cannot explain why that basis has arranged for your existence.

On another note, beings have purpose in everything they do except for random choice. What could possibly be the purpose of your existence?

 

As I've pointed out many times, though without the "quantum physics" which doesn't add to the argument.

We may choose a purpose. Society (as in parents, government, etc.) may have chosen a purpose for causing us to be born.

But, there is no evidence to support the notion that any of us came about because of some higher being or magical attribute of nature.

 

What kind of evidence would you need?

 

I would need a study that followed the standard procedures of scientific method.

 

Quantum physics is magical compared to standard objectivity. Consider entanglement, nonlocality, and that other phenomenon involving the breach of barriers. Photosynthesis can't be fully explained without resorting to quantum physics.

The evidence suggesting the legitimacy of mind-related causation is in the double slit experiment.