But, before we get to that, a brief introduction:
My name is Hank & I run a blog called Ethics Gradient (which, it should be noted, may – does – contain some coarse language. In my mind, it’s all perfectly justified but I realise not everyone digs the sailor-talk). I also go by “Mandrellian” on various threads on various blogs, youtube videos and forums. After a few comments on a recent DI thread, Erich Vieth did me the honour of inviting me to be a contributor here at Dangerous Intersection. For my first post I’ve shared one of my previous works from my personal blog and edited it very, very slightly to improve the flow and readability [permalink]. Hopefully it will give people an idea where I’m coming from (besides Melbourne, Australia).
Many thanks to Erich for his faith in me. I shall attempt to justify it with my future posts. OK, let’s get on with it.
Why I am not an atheist …
… and why I am.
I am not an atheist because:
- I hate God
- I prayed to God and my prayers weren’t answered
- Militant/fundamentalist atheists converted me away from God
- I worship science and the works of man instead of God
- I’m rebelling against God like I rebelled against my parents & teachers in high school
- I think I’m better than God
- I had a bad experience with a priest or church or religious person
- I can’t decide which religion to subscribe to
- atheism is my religion
- I think religious people are idiots
- I worship Batman
- I worship Satan
- I’m immoral/amoral and would rather do what I want
- I want to destroy religion
I distrust and criticise (sometimes strongly) certain organised religions because:
- they are human inventions and many seem to be preoccupied with obsessively controlling aspects of peoples’ private lives instead of improving them
- many Christian churches seem primarily concerned with attracting money and then keeping it rather than using it charitably
- many holy books get descriptions of the world & nature completely wrong, which you would not expect had they been dictated by the omnipotent creator of the universe
- many holy books contain descriptions of human events that cannot be historically verified and in all likelihood never happened (eg. Exodus)
- many holy books contain numerous laws, acts & stories of a morality that modern, free societies find repugnant; these societies have passed many of their own laws contradicting such biblical “morality”
- as well as innumerable separate religions; there are so many separate & often violently opposed sects of each religion that it is more likely that none of them are correct than just one of them being so
- many religious groups demand special treatment such as the right not to be offended by statements, artworks, songs or anything else that may criticise or disagree with their dogma; their protests quite often run contrary to ideas such as free speech, beloved by most modern democratic societies
- religious groups frequently try to have laws passed which unfairly impose their narrow standards of behaviour, based on interpretations of specific holy commands, onto the rest of society
- religious people often tend to pick & choose from, or “interpret” their holy texts, discarding what does not conform to modern standards of morality, law & political freedom; they then bizarrely imply that modern morality, law and political freedom rests on the foundations of their particular religion
- there is such a wide spectrum of religious belief & adherence to dogma, ranging from light, barely-existent deism to the kind of rigid fundamentalism that oppresses and kills many, many people in its name, that it leads me to conclude that either their God wasn’t clear enough with his message, didn’t spread it to enough people or that humans have basically made their religions and associated rules up as they went along and have been in conflict with each other about them ever since
- many religious people & groups wilfully mis-characterise atheists as immoral, empty beings with no appreciation for beauty or mystery simply because we prefer natural explanations for the universe’s phenomena rather than defaulting to “God did it”; they believe that any explanation, even a wrong one, is better than “we just don’t know yet”
- many religious groups continue to deny long-accepted scientific facts such as the divergence of species through evolution and the verified age of the Earth; some wish their particular mythology taught as fact in science classes and go to extraordinary lengths to accomplish it; some even insist there’s a huge, dark Scientist Conspiracy quashing “academic freedom”
- many religious people & groups attempt to cherry-pick science (as they do their scriptures) for those parts which conform to their belief system while actively denying others, e.g. creationists agreeing with “microevolution” while denying “macroevolution” (which is like believing that matches cannot start bushfires) or attempting to use the Second Law of Thermodynamics to debunk the theory of evolution (which is like ajudicating a baseball game with a cricket rulebook)
- some religious groups deny the efficacy of modern medicine in favour of treating an ill person with prayer, a practice which has led to many preventable deaths, often of children
- they all make extraordinary claims based on their scriptures, provide no evidence beyond referring to their (unsurprisingly) self-confirming scriptures and then insist that the onus is on non-believers to disprove their claims
- many religions have become inextricably intertwined with the laws of the patriarchal or tribal cultures which spawned or adopted them, leading to divine justifications for such horrors as female circumcision and “honour killings”, which more often than not punish women, already under the thumbs of domineering males, for seemingly minute transgressions of law
- when it comes to the hot-button issue of sexual abuse by priests, many religions seem more concerned with good public relations, shielding themselves from culpability and keeping numbers in churches than with compensating victims and being active about either punishing perpetrators or preventing further abuse
I am an atheist because:
- any & all claims of and explanations for the existence of God or any other gods have thus far fallen far short of my standards of evidence
- my understanding of the natural universe is that it functions in such a way that doesn’t require (or indicate) the presence of any supernatural entity intervening in either the laws of nature or selected peoples’ lives
That’s it. They are the only two things that I can say I absolutely have in common with any other atheist. In matters of sex, politics, architecture, gaming, interior design, pets, music, clothing, hobbies, language, philosophy, education, sports, typing speed, preferred drugs, affinity with beagles & frogs and any number of other categories I may be diametrically opposite to any (or every) other atheist in the world. To label one atheist with the same attributes you label another atheist is ignorant at best, flat-out dishonest at worst. As such, I try not to do the same thing with religious people.
But what could steer me in the opposite direction? Probably the same things that could steer any atheist …
I could be converted to theism if:
- God, or a god, showed himself or performed an act that unambiguously proved his existence as an immortal, omnipotent being. As to what that proof would constitute: that god himself would be the perfect arbiter of what would conclusively prove to six billion people that he existed.
Such things as tortillas depicting blurred, apparently Mary-shaped silhouettes do not count. If you’re there, God, you’re on notice! Any time is fine. But no tricks – and come alone (if indeed there’s only one of you, otherwise, bring the whole parthenon).
—
In hindsight, there are quite a few things I left off both of those two longer lists, but I haven’t added them here. To add a large amount of new content to a re-post in the hope that a “special edition” would make it heaps, heaps better might (a) make me feel a total hypocrite, like I’m pulling a George Lucas (may he drown in his money-bin) and (b) turn people off, TL;DR style. I also believe that excessive after-the-fact editing takes a bit of the “blogginess” away from what I write. I like the sort-of “stream of consciousness” aspect of blogging, in that it provides a snapshot of my mindset at the precise time I was writing a post, warts & all, as opposed to being a considered, well thought-out post that took a very long time to compile. I don’t do many drafts. If I can’t finish something the day I start, it simply never gets published. Suffice it to say that philosophy didn’t serve me well at school!
OK, that’s enough of that. Keep enjoying the DI experience, readers. I hope to get into some serious/thoughtful/entertaining dialogue with some of you soon.
Hank
Erich, I am SOOOO ready.
First I stopped responding to Erik because it was usless to try and get him to actually answer a question.
Then I stopped reading him because if you read one EB post you've read 'em all.
Now I zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Mobius 1: Beautiful closing sentence. Yes, there are unicorns in the Bible. This claim is thus LITERALLY true, whatever it means. Your sentence sums up so much of the problem. The claim by so many fundamentalists is that this big book, full of oftentimes vague references, is literally true. The claim of literal truth, then is a self-contradiction, because even conservative believers often disagree as to the meaning of the passages. You can't have literally true meaning without first having clear meaning.
Oops. Broke my own resolution to move on.
• Edgar Montrose
How is showing you the meaning of the word “believe” or “faith” demonstrating anything other than the truth of the argument? You are giving your own definition to the word “faith/belief” when the Bible has a clear definition in mind. If you do not know the original definition then you really cannot argue what is or is not meant by the word “faith/believe”.
I have stated a rational argument based on fact (evidence) when you have given your opinion. Which is more logical, fact or opinion?
Look, I am not here to win or loose an argument. I am here to defend the Word of God using the Word of God (which you guys like to try to use against itself, then blame me for circular reasoning when I use the Bible).
All I did was point out where your argument was lacking.
Erich
See the explanation that was given to Mobius and you will see where your claims are wrong as well.
Erik wrote, "I have stated a rational argument based on fact (evidence) when you have given your opinion. Which is more logical, fact or opinion?"
Erik's "rational argument" goes like this: I know the Bible is true because the Bible is the Word of God; and I know the Bible is the Word of God because the Bible is true. That's not a rational argument, Erik, it's a circular argument.
grumpypilgrim
classic example of what I have been talking about. You guys can use the Bible to argue against God but call it circular arguing when I use the Bible to argue for God (not the double standard).
Secondly, my argument has never been "the Bible is true because it is the Word of God". Read what I have written. You are using an argument that you want to disprove and saying that it is mine (bad idea, no use of logic on your part).
Thirdly, I gave a rational argument on the definition of faith/believe. Read what the argument is about before you jump in and speak nonsense!!!
Erik wrote, "You guys can use the Bible to argue against God but call it circular arguing when I use the Bible to argue for God (not the double standard)."
No, Erik, it is not a double standard. The Bible is illogical and self-contradictory; therefore, it is a perfectly legitimate source from which to argue against the existence of the god it describes. However, using the Bible to argue for the existence of an invisible deity necessarily reduces to a circular argument, for the reason I mentioned.
Erik continued, "…my argument has never been “the Bible is true because it is the Word of God”…I gave a rational argument on the definition of faith/believe."
Sorry, Erik, I overlooked your claim that, "God changed my heart (life) so there is no question that He exists." If you believe your argument is "rational," then consider the following equivalent arguments:
Santa Claus has changed the hearts of many children, so there is no question that he exists.
Harry Potter has changed the hearts of many people, so there is no question that he exists.
Unicorns have changed the hearts of many little girls, so there is no question that they exist.
Imaginary friends have changed the hearts of many children, so there is no question that they exist.
Buddha has changed the hearts of many people, so there is no question that he exists.
The Evil Eye has changed the hearts of many people, so there is no question that it exists.
UFOs have changed the hearts of many people, so there is no question that they exist.
Had enough yet, Erik?
Greetings! Your comments took me back to what I believed decades ago. I also thought that any and all claims of and explanations for the existence of God or any other gods had fallen short of my standards of evidence and that my understanding of the natural universe was that it functioned in such a way that didn't require or indicate the presence of any supernatural entity intervening in either the laws of nature or selected peoples' lives. However, I met a scientist so knowledgeable about the laws of nature that seeds of doubt were planted in the reliability of my standards of evidence. I learned that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I began to learn more. I then met a professor of ancient history who showed me things from various ancient civilizations that again brought into questions what I had believed. I met a theologian who introduced me to the creator God who loved me so much He sent His Son to die for my sins.
You mentioned that you could be converted to theism if God, or a god, showed himself or performed an act that unambiguously proved his existence as an immortal, omnipotent being. I will ask God to do that for you. I believe God will one day show Himself to every human being when everyone who has ever lived kneels before Him in Heaven, but my hope is He shows Himself to you personally before that time. People prayed for me years ago and it apparently worked because here I am, a former atheist, now a believer in the existence of God.
I'm glad I found your website!
Mark
Oh hell, another one.
Mr McGee: prayer noted.
Perhaps you (like our pet pigeon, Mr Brewer), didn't read or fully comprehend the post, but it'll take a bit more than you telling me how great Jesus is; your tales of talking to some anonymous history professor or you asking your god for a favour on my behalf.
Like I said, I was a Christian. I know how belief and faith work (at least how they used to work – and ultimately didn't work – for me). But I thought my way out of it. It wasn't painful, it didn't destroy my life or any of my relationships or alter my life in any major way, but it did take years of occasional, quiet, deep contemplation and honest introspection.
I'm now happy with where I am on the subject of religion – I am as unbelieving regarding the god of Abraham as I am regarding Shiva & Zarathustra. If you'll respect that and cease evangelising we'd all appreciate it greatly. Though you're free to say what you like here (without penalty or banning, as clearly evidenced by our pet pigeon's continuing presence), this site is not a hunting ground for new souls.
• grumpypilgrim
Show me where the Bible is “self-contradictory”. I keep begging for an example.
Good job in trying to deny a double standard even though through your argument you prove your own double standard. By the way, I have used real, live evidence that you just keep ignoring. Stick your head in the sand and the facts will just disappear (ie fulfilled OT prophecy, Israel, changed lives etc).
No, SC (or any of the rest of the nonsense that you wrote) did not change anyone’s heart. God is the only one who can change a person’s character. Just because you have not experienced it does not mean that it is not true. So, yes, I have had enough, enough of the nonsense. Bring a better argument next time.
[Admin's note: Part of this comment constitutes "preaching." That portion is an attempt to announce what "God" thinks or what "God" wants, as though there is no alternative viewpoint as to what God "thinks" or "wants." In my opinion, such presentations are distracting to our discussions, which (though such comments might well be motivated by a commenter's religious beliefs) should be based on what commenter's themselves think. Such comments seem to invite an endless and unproductive back and forth focused on the authenticity of such claims. Further discussion of what is starkly presented as "God's" opinion, or any quotation to any passages from any religion's Sacred Literature, to the extent that those passages are intended to be unquestionable on any ground, are subject to pruning pursuant to the commenting guidelines regarding "preaching"].
• Hank
You like to preach your anti-God message but are upset when someone shares about God. Trying to silence the critics (sounds an awful lot like Hitler and Stalin again).
Erik wrote – Show me where the Bible is “self-contradictory”. I keep begging for an example.
Lets go digging for these, shall we? I don't have time to do it, I have to go to work. Read through this yourself.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name….
406 contradictions to date, so far.
Wow! What a thread! I hesitate even to attempt to join the conversation. Everything seems to have been said by all parties concerned that can be said on the subject and I would never expect to change any minds. However, I have enjoyed the conversation and I would like to inject a few thoughts for everyone's consideration.
To Erik Brewer: I respect your passion and the sincerity of your faith. It is not always easy being publicly a "person of faith" these days and this site has some of the most intelligent and eloquent proponents of agnosticism and/or atheism that I have ever encountered. Anyone taking them on should bring their lunch with them (and hope that no one else eats it). I am a believer too, however I suspect that we would not agree on everything.
I do have some questions for you though.
You've admitted that you have experienced a period of non-belief in your life (me too). Did you honestly feel depraved?
I didn't. I did eventually come to feel that I was not correct, but I never felt guilty about my quest for the truth. Having questions, doubts and disagreements is fundamentally human (and I would even say noble. What else is an intellect for?). Not caring about truth (religious or not) seems to be a much more egregious situation for a person to be in than having doubts, questions or disagreements in my opinion. Most of the bloggers here appear to me to be quite passionate and honest in their search for truth regardless of their position on the existence or non-existence of God.
Isn't characterizing people as "depraved" because they do not agree with us immoral in itself if you really believe in Christ? I must have missed the part of Scripture where Jesus greeted his "depraved" friends, family and neighbors as such when they failed to fall to their knees and worship him when he passed by. I seem to remember Him continuing to speak with them in a loving and respectful way. Apparently, their "errant" views bothered Him less than they seem to bother you at the moment.
You say that the Bible is indisputable fact, yet there are so many different theologies based on it. Doesn't the obvious issue of all these different interpretations of "fact" give you any pause? Or, is it that you simply believe that any Christian who does not worship/interpret as you do are not truly "Christian" in your eyes?
I would assume from what you say about the literal truth of the Word of God that you do not eat pork, have stoned some of your neighbors to death for adultery and rotating their crops and that you have at least considered selling and or buying slaves. If not, I would wonder why. Does the Word of God become obsolete at some point? A two thousand year warranty (or 10,000,000 miles, whichever comes first)? If Christ lived as a good Jew under the Mosaic Law I would hope that you are too. If it was goo enough for our Lord then it should be good enough for us, right? Or are some God given facts irrelevant in your view?
I think that you get my clumsypoint. Even faith "evolves" (pardon the reference). I don't think that the world began six thousand years ago, but I also don't think that the age of the planet proves or disproves God. I just think that God speaks to scientists (like Darwin) as much as He speaks to people of faith.
To my friend Mike Pulcinella:
You ask a great question and I would like to try and answer it.
"If God is all powerful and could have created us as perfect in a world without sin…why didn’t he??"
I don't think that we learn much of anything from our successes and our strengths. What causes us to grow as beings is our pain, suffering, weaknesses, mistakes and failures. In a perfect world without sin we would all be happy and be completely unaware of our happiness ( if a person is happy and they don't realize it are they truly happy?). We would simply exist in an unchanging panorama devoid of both pleasure and pain, success and failure, or growth and development. We would be the same emotionally the day we were born until the day we died.
I know this because I used to watch the Starship Enterprise routinely destroy evil supercomputers and alien races that tried to establish and maintain such utopias every weeknight at 6 PM on Channel 17. I think that God would be truly pissed off at being destroyed by the Enterprise (or any federation ship) so He has simply avoided this error and put Star Trek and it's various subsidiary shows on cable, pretty much around the clock to mock us.
All kidding aside, what would a world "without sin" really look like in your opinion?
Welcome Vesperiant. It's always nice to see a voice of reason walk in the door! Hope you can stick around and join in the fray here and there 🙂
For the record: it's not religion itself that rubs me the wrong way, just the small minority of people who can't imagine a world without religion (especially their particular narrow version of it) and insist that even non-religious people think exactly as they do, but won't admit it. Mr Brewer's obstinacy, refusal to accept others' reasoning and constant pulpiteering in the threads here at DI are the perfect example of that. You, however, seem to be able to recognise an opposing point of view as exactly that and not a dire threat to be stamped out or a choice to be depraved or some other fallacious bit of reasoning. I look forward to reading answers to your well thought-out questions. Again, welcome to DI.
—
Mr Brewer wrote to me: "You like to preach your anti-God message but are upset when someone shares about God. Trying to silence the critics (sounds an awful lot like Hitler and Stalin again)."
I don't have an "anti-god" message. I can't be opposed to something I don't believe is there in the first place. What I am opposed to is something that I know exists: religious fundamentalism and the blind ignorance, double-standards and dishonesty that invariably accompanies it.
It's not the sharing about God that's upsetting. Say what you want here (you do already)! However, it is highly frustrating talking to someone who inserts their god into almost every sentence they utter – it's tiresome and pointless. DI is a place for vigorous adult discussion, not a hunting ground for fresh souls.
"Silence the critics"? Laughable. In what way have I, personally, attempted to silence anyone? You're permitted to post whatever you like here (within reason, check the comments policy) – the very fact that you continue to say exactly what you want falsifies your accusation. Please provide proof of anything I've done to censor you. I might well have ridiculed, rebutted, ranted and railed against you and those of your ilk (and I may have even called you a pigeon), but nowhere have I ever attempted to silence you. Your persecution complex & martyrdom fantasies (not to mention your pathetic attempts to compare me to Hitler & Stalin) are grossly misplaced.
[cue more of the same & Hank asking himself why the bloody hell he keeps feeding the attention-seeking troll]
Vesperian:
Slightly off-topic here! One of my favourite 1960s Star Trek episodes was where Kirk & co encountered a very powerful alien being on a distant planet (yes, like 99% of them). In this particular episode, it was explained that this powerful alien was worshipped as a god by ancient humans and was named "Apollo". However, once humans had discovered how to use their intellect and started discovering the truth about the universe, he and his fellow "gods" were made redundant and their mythology disproven, so they left the solar system and spread throughout the universe. Apollo was left lording it over a distant, barren planet, constantly attempting to re-live his former glory (he ended up picking a fight with the Enterprise and losing to its advanced weapons).
Regardless of personal religious belief, it's a powerful (if a tad obvious) metaphor for intellect trumping ignorance & superstition. At the time (I was 15 or so and on the way to leaving religion behind) the thought occurred to me that perhaps all the gods ever written about were like this sci-fi depiction of hapless Apollo: aliens with powers beyond the comprehension of the ordinary humans to whom they appeared. Aliens, using their superior technology to work "miracles" and take advantage of human ignorance.
That thought didn't last very long though: hypothetically, lack of any evidence for alien life notwithstanding, if all we could do for these highly-advanced aliens was worship them, write them songs and build them temples (and sometimes kill each other in their names), they probably had very little else going on in their lives and were probably pretty insecure and easily amused 🙂 But it did leave an impression: that people are usually happy to accept miraculous explanations for mundane phenomena until sufficient explanations of the causes of those mundane phenomena are provided, tested, backed up and confirmed. Even then, in the face of many years and countless pieces of evidence, many people continue to stick to miraculous explanations (see age of the earth & universe /evolution vs. Genesis for just one example).
Live long & prosper //
Mobius
I have already debunked several of them and can do it for all of them because they all have the same fallacy (taken out of context, avoiding the original language, lack of knowledge of the culture. As I said before, these are not things that you have come across through rational study. You go and take what someone else has written (not bothering to check the context or do any study yourself).
• Vesperiant
I knew that I was not right when I was a non-believer. I have never said that people should check their brains at the door when dealing with faith. The word faith itself requires “understanding”. I did not realize how depraved I was until I became a Christian and began studying the Bible. The Bible even says test what is there and see that God is good (right or true). I have put the Scriptures to the test and they have not failed.
As a believer I hope that you are a student of the Bible. If you study Romans 1 you will see that God calls those who reject Him, ones of a depraved and futile mind. I am not calling anybody anything other than what the Word says. Rejecting God = depravity according to God. By the way, how did Christ speak to those who had rejected God (the Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees)? What did he do for the rich young ruler who rejected Him?
I guess using the language of the Bible is wrong in your eyes. I share with compassion but I must share the Truth as It is. Look at the way the prophets spoke to the people. Look at the way Jesus spoke as well (to those who had rejected Him). Pay attention to what is written.
There is one interpretation of the Bible that is correct. People can have many but that does not make them right. God explains Himself well but people jump to conclusions or look for what they want to see etc. It is not about what I think, it is about the Word of God.
Again, I would advise you to study the Bible before making your claims about pork and stoning. By writing that you show that you lack an understanding of the context and entire teaching of the Bible. God speaks about pork in Acts with Peter (did you know that?). Does the word theocracy ring a bell with you? What about cultural context? As to slavery, I have written on that (please read the explanation).
If the Word of God becomes obsolete then so does God. By the way (since you seem to know what Jesus said), did Jesus not say
Matthew 5:18 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Matthew 24:35 35 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.
That answers your questions about the Word of God. God does not evolve. The Scriptures say that He was/is/will be. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I wonder which god you follow if you have such a low view of the Word of God. God speaks through His Word (there is no other method).
[Warning from Admin: Portions of this comment violate the policy on "preaching." See the commenting and email policies of this site for further information. I've allowed this comment through in it's entirety as a teaching device. Future incidents of "preaching" are subject to being deleted (portions of comments that don't violate the policy will be published).]
Hank
When you speak against the Bible you demonstrate your anti-God views. Attacking the Bible and God is the same thing.
I am sharing a point of view yet you criticize me for it (talk about a double standard).
You “invite” people not to share their point of view if it has anything to do with God (silence the critics). You wrote it yourself. As for the name calling, I am used to childish rants from you guys, it really does not bother me.
No. Not "anti" god. "No" god. There's a difference. I cannot oppose what I don't believe is there. Atheism means "I don't believe that theists' claims of God's existence stack up", not "I hate God". Learn that.
What I do oppose is what people do in the name of their faith – if what they do is destructive or dishonest. Or just plain stupid, annoying, feeble-minded, illogical, hypocritical…
I only ask (and so does the DI comment policy) that people not preach in these threads. Because you repeatedly choose to ignore that and continue your preaching, you have had several large chunks of your commentary removed recently (rightly so, but not by me, for the record – take it up with the admins). I "silence" noone. Hell, you're still here aren't you? Still fighting losing battles on half a dozen fronts in several threads simultaneously, in fact. If that to you means 'silence the critics' then your perception is badly skewed. Many other blogs would have banned you permanently for your mindless trolling & evangelising by now – in fact I've seen many atheists (and even moderate theists) banned from religious blogs for much less.
Again, say what you like, just bear in mind this is not a place to acquire souls.
[cue more tiresome nonsense, martyrdom, non-understanding & intentional missing of the sodding point]
"If the Word of God becomes obsolete then so does God." — Erik
Exactly our point!
God was a smart gal: She provided a set of baby rules to be followed until we know better, and can cut the apron strings.
We now have the scissors.
Finally! Vesperiant comes to the rescue! I hope Erik learns by your example. Doubt does not necessarily lead to depravity.
Vesperiant wrote: "What causes us to grow as beings is our pain, suffering, weaknesses, mistakes and failures. In a perfect world without sin we would all be happy and be completely unaware of our happiness…"
I disagree. (Of course!) Yes, suffering and growth is a very important part of being human that both Star Trek and I celebrate! But an all powerful God could have created a universe in which there is no temptation, no sin, no suffering AND yet complete fulfillment without having us feel like robots. If he wanted to. But he didn't.
I keep coming back again and again to the conclusion that if He CHOSE to create things this way then he must get a kick out of watching us suffer. The concept of a "loving" God who creates weak and fragile human beings and then gives them obstacles so great that many of them fail completely seems to me to be a contradiction. Comparisons to the raising of children are inadequate because we don't create our children from nothing as God supposedly did.
If, on the other hand, this is the way things HAD to be then God must be subject to an over-arching "nature of the universe" which is beyond His control and…well, you can see the problem there.
It just never adds up for me bro.
Hank wrote: "…I’ve seen many atheists (and even moderate theists) banned from religious blogs for much less."
Speaking of which, I was banned from a forum for people who practice Santeria (a religion with roots in Africa that still requires live animal sacrifice) on my SECOND POST because I said, "Although I do consider the practice (of animal sacrifice) to be barbaric, I would like to discuss it further with you and understand it better."
Upon returning to the forum from another computer merely to lurk, I read some of the follow up posts which occurred after my banning. One of them said, "I knew from the beginning that he wasn't one of us!" It seems that no dissent is allowed in this particular religion.
I have no problem with most followers of religion, unless they take the stance that I must be converted ( or perverted depending on one's POV) to their particular intrepretation of faith.
I think the problems we face today are not really caused by religion, but by political leaders who manipulate the faithful followers of religions ot the belief that their political goals are mandated by their god or gods, and to achieve this goal any means, no matter how cruel and inhumane, are sanctioned by their teachings.
My problem is with the idea that the theo-political utopias promoted by many various groups have no place for democracy.
By the way, I think the best illustration of this is from the SciFi channel series "Firefly" which was editied into the feature length film "Serenity"