I will now prove atheists are illogical!

No, but the DESIRE to have sex IS.

We as adults, who are not given to mating rituals like animals are either in control of our sexuality of not. If you believe that you are slave to your sexual desire, then brother, there is not a religion on earth that agrees with you ... save perhaps Satanism and some Pagan religions.

Again, its your, or rather their, lives, they are entitled to it. I too can choose to have sex wantonly, to violate my marriage, and lay my behavior at the feet of sexual desire, but everyone I know would consider it a personal failure ... not genetics.

Then there is my best friend and his wife, he a strapping US Army Ranger, kind and warm, and his wife is a beautiful blonde who is equally warm. So, if I have sexual desire for one of them, I am free to act on it? Because the eruption of desire is beyond my control? Or do I choose honor, integrity, and boundaries and simply refuse to indulge in the feeling and banish it?

I simply refuse to agree that the stirring of desire alone is beyond choice and thus you MUST and are compelled to behave a certain way due to sex. If a person CHOOSES the homosexual lifestyle - so be it. More power to them. If they are happy, so be it. I don't have to agree with their take on sex in particular. That is particularly so because the view of sex advocated in that one is neither backed by science and it is a slipperly slope upon which sexual responsibility is based.

Either we control sex, or sex controls us.

We ar enot talking about the law. We are talking about the church's view on sexuality. Promiscuity is not illegal either, its still a sin in most churches. Adultry is not a crime, still a sin. Prostitution IS illegal, yet people do it all the time and its rationalized as a victimless crime. Yet the churches position is clear - all are wrong.

If you do not ascribe to that position, don't join the church.

In the church it is. Once againm you are picking and choosing, and what is at base is the religious belief that we control our sexuality rather than the other way around. Promiscuity violates the law of chastity. So does homosexual promiscuity. Having sexual desire does NOT violate the law of chastity. Having homosexual desire does NOT violate the law of chastity.

You are picking and choosing social acceptance of sexual behavior, but that is not what most churches do - there is a standard and you either follow it or you do not. If not, you are subject to the discipline of the church. That simple.

 

Let's clear this up a bit.

First of all I haven't called anyone on Political Forum a child abuser. I've stated that brainwashing children was child abuse. Children should not be indoctrinated about religion until they are old enough to understand it. Prior to gaining the critical thinking skills necessary to review and understand religous teachings it is nothing but brainwashing and they shouldn't be exposed to those teachings (nor should they be discouraged related to religion).

I have not lied about the historical foundation for Christianity. It was predominately based upon the Hebrew teachings which were written by unknown authors. The specific teachings of Christianity are based upon the New Testament where the texts were written decades after the life of Jesus with several of them written by a man that never met Jesus when he was alive. We don't know the accuracy of these texts but we do know that they were written by men with an agenda which makes them questionable. None of this is a lie.

Not a single word written by Jesus exists. He left no written texts which is highly unusual unless he was illiterate which was not uncommon at the time. I have never condemned anything that Jesus said because we don't have anything that he actually said recorded. In this regard he's much like Socrates in that we don't have any written texts from Socrates either. As has been accurately stated all we have are written texts from decades after the death of Jesus making claims of what he might have said but those texts are questionable at best and any statements would be paraphrased as opposed to being accurate even under the best of conditions.

I have not insulted anyone here unless the facts insult them and if that is the case then it's not my fault. I never respond in anger as there is no reason for me to be angry over anything nor is there any reason for me to feel any reason that presenting facts is a short-coming. I'm not the one that has a problem with the truth.

If anyone is offended by what I've stated then they are being offended by the truth and not by me. I'm not inclined to lie simply to spare someone's feelings. That would be dishonest and would violate my personal integrity and lying, from a secular humanist standpoint, would be immoral. I don't need someone to write down that lying is wrong 2000 years ago for me to know that it is morally wrong.

I can only state that if the truth offends someone then they really need to re-evaluate why it would offend them. It is certainly not my intent to insult anyone by sharing the truth or my opinions related to it.

 

I am reading this post from the beginning but had to comment here before reading further. If someone else has written a similar post I apologise.

Firstly, the original OP is not logical, but totally illogical.

I have also seen many references to "creating something from nothing", and statements like ...

So, if to 'create' something, that is for something to exist it must have been created, and God exists, then who or what created God?

 

Einstein once said something along the line ... You can prove my theories correct a thousand times, that does not mean that they are correct. But if you can prove it wrong once, then it IS wrong.

particles coming into existence from nothing, every fibre of my quite well scientifically educated mind, quivers at this thought. Theories were not always the ultimate level of science, in our less informed era we were a lot more arrogant. More arrogant then you are now I hear you say, lol.

Once we made laws, Newton's Laws of Motion for example. When science had to face the fact that the laws were broken a zillion times when it came to particle physics, we soon stopped using the term law.

The stupidest thing that a human can do in my opinion, is to accept something as "the answer".

To say that something comes from nothing defies the basic physics hypothesis that nothing can be created or destroyed. It would be much more scientifically accurate in my opinion to say, "We do not know where they come from". They could for example "created" by the concentration of energy, for matter and energy are interchangeable, well at least according to the theory E=MC2

 

While I don't know exactly what this statement implies I would point out some simple facts.

Individuals have relationships with other individuals in three ways. We have intellectually, emotionaly and physically relationships. These can be positive or negative relationships but let's focus on the positive relationships. We have wonderful and positive intellectual relationships with individuals in our lives and this should be encouraged. We also have wonderful and positive emotionally relationships with individuals and these should be encouraged. Finally we also have wonderful and positive physical relationships with individuals and these should also be encouraged. It doesn't matter if these wonderful and positive relationships are long term or one-time encounters as they are all positive experiences where both individuals benefit from the encounter and the shared relationship.

What I find bazaar is that Christianity, as well as many other religions, endorse positive personal and emotional relationships whether they are long term or one-time encounters but then condemn physical relationships that might be a one-time encounter. All three types of relationships can and should be positive relationships and all positive relationships should be encouraged as they benefit those involved. A great conversation between individuals (an intellectual relationship) is fundamentally no different than great sex between individuals (a physical relationship) so why are so many with religious beliefs hypocritical in their positions between the two? Even loving more than one person is better than only loving one person. Why do so many religious believers oppose this as well?

I can only speculate that the differences relate to personal insecurity but that is just my opinion. Some individuals are so afraid of losing what they have that they limit what they're willing to accept even though they would benefit if they expanded their own limitations and discarded their personal insecurities.

I remember when Grace Slick addressed this issue in the 1960's in the Jefferson Airplane's song Triad and the logic of the lyrics is so self-evident that it was impossible to ignore.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ivq_UsJh0g&feature=fvsr"]Jefferson Airplane Triad - YouTube[/ame]

Why do some people feel so insecure that they impose religious limitations on love (emotional relationships) and sex (physical relationships)?

 

What the hell makes you think that as a parent, I have no right or that it is abuse to indioctrinate MY CHILDREN with MY VALUES? Espcially when those values include things like love, compassion, selflessness, service, charity ...

And you think that is child abuse solely because YOU reject MY faith? Well, you are entitled to your opinion, you are in no way shape or form entitled to call MY VALUES a form of child abuse because you want to take militant, and frankly irrational, form of atheism and demand it be the foundation of MY VALUES.

It isn't, and never will be.

The Jesus Myth is a known fabrication. The Passion narrative, as I stated, was written, as well as the Gospel Q, are all written within a few years. The Synoptic Gospels are ALL first person accounts, and they agree on the basics enough that SCHOLARS consider them higly accurate - espcially when the details that can be verified are indeed verified as accurate.

In other words, you have a made up standard, one that casts doubt on ALL ancient history, one that is rejected by ALL period scholars (inlcuding the author of the Jesus Myth), in order to caste aspirtions on someone else's faith.

Its nothing but your FAITH driving an attack on someone else's faith. Its your opinion vs. scholarship. And the real reason you reject the scholarship? IMO, its your faith. Its the self fulfilling prophecy that is there is not God then what follows MUST be fraud! So any silly standard that fulfills that prophecy is good? SO what if the scholarship conflicts with it?

See above, first person accounts. Multiple first person accounts. Not a single written word exists from any Pharoh .... yet we know they are real. Real standards please.

Spuriously comparing someone's beliefs to child abuse and calling it bull(*)(*)(*)(*) is not exactly an unemotional presentation of facts Shiva.

That fact that scholarship does not agree with you seems to indicate the opposite. The fact that you are comparing others beliefs to child abuse and calling it bull(*)(*)(*)(*) indicates that it is you, not us, that are getting emotional and offended by the truth.

The drum beat and dogmatic claim of 'truth' might sound nice, but when facts disagree with your version of 'truth' that is a problem for you.

Jesus was real. That is a fact. So was Mohammed. So were the Apostles. So was Pontius Pilate. And yet, you speak of truth? And these things are all just fabricated, a galatic time travelling conspiracy that planted evidence all over the historical and archeological timeline ... and fooled everyone but a few atheists?

Well, good thing we have a few atheists to uncover these intergalatic conspiracies and find the 'truth'.

Now apply that standard to you position and understand that you are in the wrong side of scholarship and comparing non-childabuser to child abusers.

Well, as its 'truth' we are after, all I have to do now is compare atheism to the communist red brigades and can, from this point on, compare it terrorism. Atheism is therefor in legaue, all by its lonesome, with Osama Bin Laden. What, its just the 'truth'?

 

What should children be indoctrinated with?

 

The standard answer is that God is the Alpha and Omega and has never not existed. It's a very convenient answer.

 

Unfortunately the Progressive mind set of "we know what is better than you for both you & your family,' has invaded our schools, and has so far (w/o God), produced a generation of ignorant & irresponsible citizens ( being 'gracious' using that title).

Where this country had 'common values' from its foundation thru-out most of it's history, we have now become a schizophrenic smattering of selfish-minded, self-seeking rebellious children, aka 'brats!"

The result of not heeding our founding fathers, such as:

"It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible." - George Washington

"Without a humble imitation of the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, we can never hope to be a happy nation." - George Washington

 

That isn't a progressive mind set - it's just as likely to come from the religion you're promoting. It's coming from you right now.

Which generation are you refering to exactly? Older people have been making the same kind of complaints about the generations behind them for centuries.

Should we go back to the genocide and slavery of your nations foundation (from my nations people)?

 

I haven't brought into question any member's values but uncategorically state that young children lack the critical reasoning skills to understand religion or athiesm and parents should not be indoctrinating their children related to either. Teaching of values is not dependent upon religious beliefs and I certainly encourage that in all parenting. I merely oppose brainwashing children with religion prior to them being able to actually understand it. I consider all brainwashing to be a form of child abuse. That is my opinion and it doesn't specifically apply to anyone else.

I have never endorsed the "Jesus Myth" as I do believe that Jesus was a historical person. As I've acknowledges he was the leader of a small Jewish sect when he was alive and he was also one of several "messiahs" of that time period.

The "Passion Narrative" is highly disputed as are the actual dates of the Gospels. When the term "scholars" is used it refers to "Christian scholars" and not history scholars in general as history scholars don't simply accept religious writings as being authoritive. Scholars of history seek independent verification from unrelated sources and they rightfully question writings by related individuals with a shared agenda. In any case the Passion Narratives are date to between 30AD and 60AD and while they could be the earliest known writings then again they could also have been written decades after the death of Jesus. No other writings even come close to being written at or near when Jesus lived.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html

There is, of course, uncertainty related to all history and the standards for establishing more or less certainty are already established by historians. Certainly unrelated contemporary documents from numerous sources adds creditability removing much of the uncertainty related to historical events but it never removes all uncertainty. When we only have documents from a small clique of friends with a shared agenda, which is what the New Testament represents, it certainly creates more uncertainty than when we have independent sources reporting the same events.

Typically I’ll stick with the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that is certainly lacking related to Christianity where faith, not facts, takes precedent. Others can certainly have differing opinions and I don't discourage that in anyone. I merely point out the facts whether others choose to investigate them or not.

I have little "faith" in anything and instead prefer to use logical reasoning to reach conclusions. As stated I'm not "attacking" anyone but merely pointing out where logically religion fails. I will certainly review evidence as I've done related to the "Passion Narrative" which I find to lack substance worth serious consideration.

As noted and documented eye-witness testimony is far more inaccurate than most are willing to accept. This has been proven by clinical research studies. It becomes much less accurate if people sit around discussing "what they saw and heard" because inaccuracies from the discussions become "accepted as truth" by those involved. A link to a study identifying this problem was provided.

I have not condemned anyone for their religious beliefs on this forum. I have questioned the logic behind those beliefs and everyone that has religious beliefs should also question the logic behind those beliefs. As noted I do consider brainwashing a child that is incapable of logical deduction and reasoning with religious beliefs to be child abuse but even the most religious person in the world can refrain from brainwashing their children. They just need to let the child grow up before introducing them to religion. That is not a condemnation of anyone but does point out a serious problem with taking young children to church for the sole purpose of brainwashing them with religion before they're old enough to even question it logically.

I have yet to read unbiased historical scholars that disagree with anything I've put forward. And for the nth time I don't personally care what adults believe so long as they don't attempt to impose their beliefs on others.

I have never denied any of this. Was Jesus god? The answer is no as there is no actual evidence of this extraordinary claim. Jesus was the leader of a small Jewish religious sect and nothing more. As noted we don't have any texts written by Jesus where he even claimed to be god. Not a single one.

On a final note on child abuse I will merely cite the following which addressed brainwashing of children:

http://www.brainwashingchildren.com/

I don't have any clue as to how many members of Political Forum have any or all of these traits and seriously I don't want to know. I do know that many of these traits are exhibited by religious followers though. Hopefully the members of Political Forum are much more open minded than the above would imply and they don't resort to brainwashing their children with religion.

 

Am presently reading "The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, Vol I," and He firmly believed that the South also recognized that slavery was the 'bondage of men,' but would not give up their valuable property, as it would have given the northern states more power in numbers and economy. And so slavery was NOT a moral decision early on, but an economical one.

I will say that traditionalism of morals is our foundation, but a smattering of changes (you can call it Progressiveness) is needed...my ratios is"

95% Conservative (Traditionalism) with 5% Progressive (original-Liberalism).

Back to atheists,

Why dont the atheists come out and be honest about their goal: They want to be self-seeking, self-serving Hedonists while having no 'absolutes' to be accountable to."

I believe we call them 'teenagers' these days...

So in the process of seeking: 'their' life, 'their' liberty, and 'their' pursuit of happiness, they are attempting to take down the rest of humanity..saying all the time, the problem is with religion!

And as recent history & direction of this nation is shown by the downward spiral of our American society, that practicing of 'their' rights, as written in the BOR, if unckd with the return of 'moral sanity,' will continue to take our country down, and the Great Experiment will just be another failed government system atop the junk heap with many others.

 

The thing is, once you accept that it is possible for something to have always existed, then the question begs to be asked: why can't the universe be the thing that has always existed?

 

What I generally find is that there are so many false erroneous claims made about athiests by religious followers that it is hard to keep disputing them and documenting how fallacious they really are. Not because it's hard to provide documentation that the claims are false but merely because so many religious followers are so deeply bigoted in their beliefs that no amount of evidence will convince them. They simply ignore the facts but I will address one more fact.

Religious followers have unquestionable faith in other humans whereas the athiest is skeptical of other humans. Remember that every religious text, every custom of religion and every teaching of religion regardless of the religion originated with men. God has never penned a single word nor is there any tangible evidence that god exists and all we have are the words of men to "establish" the existance of god.

Followers of religion blindly believe the words of other men whereas the athiest does not.

It's really that simple.

 

Two interesting points with the first being the definition of hedonism:

This is actually an exceptionally good philosophy and life-style if one takes the time to read and understand it. We do what makes us feel good and what makes others feel good. We avoid that which is painful for either ourselves or others.

Of course athiests don't need a "list" of what is right or wrong because lists are inherently flawed. It's like the commandment "Thou shalt no kill" if taken literally it would mean that a person could not "kill" someone that was raping and going to murder their spouse. I know that some will point out that it probably means "Thou shalt not murder" but because it's a "list" do we take it at face value or do we look for a rational understanding of what is being addressed and allow our actions to reflect that as opposed to blindly following a rule?

The United States was founded on the political philosophy of the inalienable Rights of the People and not on any religious teachings. While not fully embraced at the founding of America we've made steady progress in expanding the protections of the inalienable Rights of the People for over two hunderd years.

The 13th Amendment ended Slavery and Involuntary Servitude. The 14th Amendment established Rights Guaranteed, Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection. The 15th Amendment protected the Rights of the Citizens to Vote and the 19th Amendment provided Woman's Suffrage Rights.

The US Supreme Court has also been very instrumental in protecting the inalienable Rights of the People in landmark decisions such as the United States v Kim Wong Ark where natural born citizenship is established by Jus Soli under the 14th Amendment and that this Right supersedes statutory authority. It struck down discrimination in Brown v The Board of Education citing that "separate but equal" did not establish or protect equality. In Loving v Virginia the Supreme Court rule that invidious discrimination in marriage laws violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In Roe v Wade the Supreme Court ruled for the Rights of the Woman that were being violated by abortion laws while at the same time also extending limited protections based upon a "State's Interests" to the fetus which is not a person and has no inalienable Rights. More recently the Supreme Court reinforced the Right of habeas corpus for foreigners being detained by the US at GITMO. Even more recently we've seen federal courts strike down DADT in the US military, declare DOMA unconstitutional and declare Prop 8 which amended the California State Constutition to prohibit same-gender marriage as also being violations of the Constitutionally protected Rights of the People.

As has always been the case it's often two steps forward and one step back in the protection of the inalienable Rights of the Individual but we do move slowly forward. We're definately on an upward spiral when it comes to protecting the People of the United States from unwarranted invasions against our inalienable Rights.

I cannot speak for athiests but I seriously doubt that they really object to someone having religious beliefs. Those beliefs might seem foolish to most athiests but as long as those that believe in religion don't try to force their beliefs on others I don't see a valid reason for complaint.

There is an element of Christianity in America that should be opposed though. This is the "Social Conservative" political philosophy of the "Religious Right" which originated with the "Moral Majority" of the 1980's and that advocates authoritarian government to impose Christian beliefs on the American People. This is not a "conservative" movement as traditional "consevatives" oppose authoritarian government regardless of religious beliefs. The "Religious Right" is basically promoting a Christian theocracy for the United States and they are just as dangerous to individual liberty and Rights as the Islamic theocracies of countries like Iran.

Those are the scary Christians that all Americans need to beware of. Unfortunately they are currently controlling the Republican primaries as they are a very strong voting block. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have all been catering to the Religious Right and advocating tyrannical goverment based upon "Christian theology" as opposed to supporting the Constitutional government of the United States.

Athiests as well as Christian libertarians and true Christian conservatives, and Christian liberals all need to unite against the Christian theocracy that is being advocated and promoted by the Christian Right.

 

As an agnostic edging ever closer to outright atheism, I fully agree with this. Religious beliefs do seem foolish to me, but I don't deny anyone's right to have them and believe in whatever they choose to believe in. I also don't believe that religious people should even care what my opinion of religion is, just as I don't care what theirs are.

All I ask, is that you keep religion out of my government. Everyone's religion. Do that, and this agnotheist will not have any more gripes about religion.

 

I'm not for a theocracy as it is defined or thought to be.

I do believe that our morals have come from history, and religions have upheld the noble standards as of living as to them. Without absolutes, we could quickly return back to the basic instincts of early man, which would be considered as raw & brutal by today's standards.

However, atheism, which is hedonism (I purposely used redundant adjectives as 'emphasis' to define it), whether an atheist admits it or not, does not promote societal unity, as the focus is on self, and not on the benefit of the total.

And since, altho I am not known for being 'a man w/o words' ( ), I also dont get involved with exhaustive bloviation to wear out my point and perceive a 'win' in an argument or debate thru pure endurance; and so will leave this particular conversation with this statement;

"Religion (as in Christianity) is NOT the GREAT threat to the future of this country, but individual hedonism (which also fits nicely with seeking 'entitlements'), and a divided population of the commonality of collective purpose & goals, as what America was based upon, will continue to take this 'former' great country down...our example is apostate, Godless, socialist Europe." Read em and weap....it really is that simple!

 

Atheism isn't the same as hedonism, whether you admit it or not.

 

I never understand comments such as this, and unfortunately, they are all too common. Not only does this type of thing arrogantly try to tell others what they believe, but it is also fundamentally and unequivocally wrong.

Atheism is just a lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it - full stop. It says absolutely nothing about society, unity, self, personal pleasure, or any other random or arbitrary concept theists attempt to attach to it in order to present it in a bad light.

Atheism is literally one of the easiest concepts to understand, yet so many fail at it. It is truly baffling. Seriously, how can it get any simpler than, "an absence of some thing"??

 

This is a good thing to know but there are those out there in American that belong to the "Religious Right" and their leaders are preaching that the Bible says they are required to impose their religious beliefs on all of society. They promote a Christian theocracy for the United States and we, as Americans, need to fight against this invidious attack on America and the ideals upon which America was founded.

An obvious example of this is their opposition to same-gender marriage where we know that discrimination under the law exists. It doesn't matter what their personal beliefs are related to marriage as those will never be compromised nor infringed upon by the inclusion of same-gender marriage. They merely advocate institutionalized discrimination under the law for same-gender couples.

Of course the problem isn't the marriage laws but instead the thousands of laws that address the personal financial partnership of individuals based upon the "legal institution of marriage" because if the other laws didn't discriminate then the marriage laws wouldn't discriminate. Examples of discrimination include joint tax filing status, SSI survivior benefits, inheritance, and joint bankruptcy protection base upon the merged financial assets and liabilities of the couple. The Religious Right wants to institutionalize discrimination under the law which violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because same-gender marriage violates their religious beliefs. They don't give a hoot that others don't hold their religious beliefs. The want Biblical theocratic law to prevail. (Now forgive my rant)

Apparently the definition of hedonism was missed when it was posted so I'll quickly post it again:

I want to point out the "philosophy" of hedonism which specifically states that "pleasant consequences" from one's actions is intrinsitically good. Can this be argued with morally? To ensure that my actions have pleasant consequences I have to insure that I don't intentionally insult someone or cause them anquish or discomfort. I may not avoid someone being insulted by waht I say but I can certainly make every effort to ensure that I don't intend to insult them. If anyone has been insulted by anything I've said in this thread, for example, it was never my intent to insult them.

Obviously actions such as assault, robbery, murder, forceable rape, and a thousand other things where nefarious intent is involved would violate the morality of hedonism because it wouyld cause "pain" to others.

Even the hedonist has "absolutes" and they are actually more far-reaching that Christian absolutes. For example the Salem Witch Trials would never occured based upon a hedonistic philosophic morality. The Spanish Inquisition would not have occurred under hedonist philosophic morality nor would the Crusades have occurred. We wouldn't have been involved in endless wars after WW I if hedonistic philosophic morality had prevailed. We wouldn't have been the victims of Islamic terrorism if hedonistic philosophic morality had prevailed because we wouldn't have engaged in the Gulf War nor been involved in any military conflicts in the Middle East. Of course Israel wouldn't have US support either as they are a tyrannical nation which violates hedonistic philosophic morality as well.

Hedonists don't promote warfare and if anything is immoral it's warfare.

Bottom line is that many followers of religious beliefs misrepresent both what an athiest is and even what we represent. As noted the misundestanding of what hedonism really is can be used as example. As opposed to absolving a person of morality it actually imposes a greater morality than the simple lists of what's right and wrong found in the Bible.

 

An atheist's ONLY standards are what is forced upon them by law! Else, what is the moral authority to which they adhere?? Atheism is about : what "I" think, what "I" believe, etc. It is 'self-focused' and is "a form of hedonism," as based on self.

Also, I forgot , but thx for reminding me: it's also about 'arrogance and dismissal' as to protect their egos. What shud happen if they are proven wrong...? Of course that is a vain question, as it will be too late to do anything about it....they must ride it out...for their ego's sake.

 

How is Christianity any different?

In order to be a Christian, "you" have to think it's the truth and "you" have to believe it. The only difference is, in Christianity and most religions, instead of thinking for yourself, you just adopt a pre-written code.

If God reveals himself, then atheists can't really be atheists any more, can they? We'll cross that bridge if atheists are ever proven wrong.

Anyway, you're tying religion way to close together with morality. You don't need one to have the other. I don't believe in God but I feel killing is wrong just the same. I don't believe in God but I believe adultery isn't good. I don't need a higher authority to tell me what's right or what's wrong, I have the brain capacity to decide for myself, just like the people who wrote the bible did.

 

Too bad we cant poll the world to see, "Who has the biggest, inflated Ego---Those of Faith or Atheists?"

Atheists would win having an inflated ego (as in thinking so highly of themselves and trusting in their self-reasoning), but not because of the reality of being so wonderful; but rather, because it is their mask that they wear to hide their 'fragileness of soul.'

Christians are taught in the scriptures (NT) that "we are the righteousness of God IN CHRIST." And that "we can do nothing of ourselves but BY THE SPIRIT that dwells within us." And as Paul said, "If I boast, I boast not of myself, but of JESUS CHRIST whom I follow." It is not who we are, as of ourselves, but who we are IN CHRIST.

Atheists will think that I'm speaking a foreign language; but more likely to bolster there egos, that I am but delusional.'' As they say, "No sweat off my back, ' and I wont lose any sleep tonight over their criticisms....

END of what might be perceived as Exhaustive Bloviating, my words wont sway those with hardened hearts...

 

What you describe here is not something that is unique to Deism. Actually, Thomas Paine in the second part of the The Age of Reason said that it was the church that was doing this. That source is biased so that it for what it is worth.

Similar atrocities have been committed by the religious in the name of some god. Let's look at the Salem witch trials and how that spun out of control and those were Christians. Of course, there was the Spanish Inquisition (nobody really expected that).

The point is god or no god, atrocities will be committed by people.

I see what you are saying here but I have problems with the concept because it would be highly impractical and invites intrusion from others. How would one of a religious persuasion avoid teaching their child about Christmas/Hanukkah/Soltice/... when it comes time to celebrate those holidays?

I'm probably not getting my thoughts across as I would like. These public standards, as you call them, limits free will. At one time, I was told that I would be going to Hell for attending college. Yes, this man's church believed that was a sin (he was the pastor). The reason for this was something along the lines that it distract one from God or something like that. In other words, he was telling me that for exercising my free will and learning more about life, universe, and everything; there would be no redemption unless I dropped out and keep myself ignorant (my point of view).

There is nothing wrong with accountability and goal setting. To hold oneself accountable to a book claimed to be the word of God that was actually penned by men with agendas is not logical.

Let's not forget here that there are rules that are strongly rooted in common sense and tend to be universal among cultures. Examples of these include no murdering, no stealing, etc... These are the types to which atheists tend to hold themselves accountable. Atheists are not without standards.

I do not think that it makes sense that a person who lived a vile and hurtful life should be capable of making it to heaven. I would think that if there is judgment, God would take one's life as a whole into account. Just my two cents.

The first quote was not anything that Washington said. If you Google it, you find that it is actually misattributed. The word "God" is not something Washington, would have used. He would have used phrases such as Creator, Supreme Being, or Divine Author (in the second quote).

 

Nice assumption. Are you saying that Christianity is the "default" belief, and only when an atheist has learned enough to self-reason themselves out of believing in religion will they actually become an atheist? That atheists are so "fragile" that they resist believing in Christ because they hate the idea of compassion, love, forgiveness, and everything else promised to us by the god I like to refer to as "biggest brother"

I don't know if that belief is born of arrogance or ignorance, but it's based on nothing.

Off-topic, but it's always made me laugh a little when a religious person yells about government surveillance because they don't like being watched by "big brother". God is the biggest brother of them all and he can see you everywhere, even when you make your pees and poops. (I don't need the reasoning explained, I get it, I'm not really being serious here).