Religion

[Laura]

The total absence of mention of microbes in Genesis is a dead giveaway that God can't have had anything whatsoever to do with the writing of scripture. So, if it was just people writing it, and they can't claim divine channeling because of the microbe issue and a multitude of other mistakes, how can there be anything holy about it. It can have no better claim to the truth than other ancient religious writings from other parts of the world which were likewise clearly written by people. By far the majority of those religions claim to be either the only true one or the purest of them, depending on the level of tolerance inherent in them. Most of them claim more or less direct authorship of their scriptures by their god or gods. Where, then, is the logic in preferring any one of them over the other? All of them have equivalent credentials. For example, nothing makes it logical that Christianity should be any better than Hinduism.
If I were to read a book that really is the inspired word of God himself, I'd expect to be completely blown away in amazement and awe. Instead, all I see is a poorly written, severely bigoted and hateful mishmash of archaic tribal ideas.
It's not generally a much better situation with the holy books of other religions. They, too, are full of bigotry and hate.
It is all so obviously the work of human beings with a power agenda, and it has worked splendidly throughout history engendering horrific wars and genocide and persecution, and has invariably made the priesthood powerful and wealthy. That is the true purpose of religion; to have people follow without question in return for nebulous promises of a nice afterlife provided they are willing to suffer through this life for the cause.
Snake oil salesmen have nothing on priests. Religion is the biggest scam of all time. Pure and simple.

[Bla]

Well said Laura.
Yes, if it were the word of a god, there surely couldn't be so many contradictions either (This video also shows some of the contradictions in a funny way). Here are some examples of what you believe if you believe the bible is true:

• You believe in dragons. Yes, the authors of scripture speak about dragons as real creatures.
(Deuteronomy 32:33, Job 30:29, Psalm 74:13, Isaiah 27:1, Jeremiah 9:11, Micah 1:8 )

• You believe in the Satyr, a creature of Greek mythology. It is a man with a goat’s legs, ears and horns. (Isaiah 13:21, Isaiah 34:34)

• You believe in the gigantic sea monster known as a Leviathan. (Job 3:8, Job 41, Psalm 74:14, Psalm 104:24-26, Isaiah 27:1)

Ironically, ancient Rabbinic studies say that God created two Leviathans on the fifth day of creation (Yalkut, Gen. 12), then had to kill the female to keep the pair from spawning and killing everything on the earth. (Rashi’s Commentary on Talmud Baba Bathra 74b)

• You believe in unicorns, referenced no less than 8 times in the bible. (Numbers 23:22, Numbers 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Job 39:9-10, Psalm 22:21, Psalm 29:6, Psalm 92:10, Isaiah 34:7)

• You believe in the Cockatrice, a serpent hatched from a rooster’s egg that can kill with a glance. (Jeremiah 8:17, Isaiah 11:8, Isaiah 59:5, Isaiah 14: 29)

• You believe the earth is flat. The authors of scripture constantly reference the “four corners of the earth,” as if the world is a level plane. In fact, Daniel 4:11 speaks of a vision of a tree growing so tall, it touched the sky, making visible the “ends of the earth. Job 38:13 talks of the world being shaken “by the edges.” (Isaiah 11:12, Jeremiah 16:19, Revelation 7:1)

You also believe that the entire (flat) earth can be seen from “an exceeding high mountain,” as when Satan tempted Jesus in Matthew 4 by showing him “all the kingdoms of the world.”

• You believe that the earth doesn’t rotate around the sun. It is “fixed” and “immovable.” (1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Isaiah 45:18)

• You believe in giants. (Genesis 6:4)

• You believe in witches and sorcery. (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:9-14, 2 Chronicles 33:6, Galatians 5:19-21)

• You believe that stars (suns) can “fall unto the earth.” (Revelation 6:12-14)

• You believe that insects like the grasshopper, locust and cricket have FOUR legs, not six. (Leviticus 11:20-23)

[space guy1]

okay one thing at a time

dragons:  could easily explained by exaggeration, or a metaphor (such as the beast in revalations)

satyr:  I looked it up on the NIV version (as it uses the most modern language) were is the passage word for word:  But desert creatures will lie there,
       jackals will fill her houses;
       there the owls will dwell,
       and there the wild goats will leap about.  and there is no isaiah 34:34

leviathan:  could be another metaphor and science has never proven that it doesnt exist, just like the giant squid

unicorn:  NIV states:  22 God brought them out of Egypt;
       they have the strength of a wild ox.   every other passage you posted says wild ox here  (and i can see that you used probably the KJV) one give away is that it says hornS of a unicorn.

cockatrice:  the NIV calls them vipers.
Another example of word meaning changing over time

flat earth:  remember at the time they had no idea that southern Africa, the Americas, east Asia, Australia, Antarctica, etc. etc. even exist so to them the world might as well have been flat. 

four corners:  even today we say things like ends of the earth,  even the earth has no ends its just an expression.  and about the seeing all the empires thing they only knew about the ones in (and around) the holy land it is possible i think to see land controlled by every empire known then from a very tall mountain.
 
immovable earth:  it does seem like it from the surface. remember the bible is not a scientific text

giants:  this is what the NIV says,  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.   okay i have no idea what it means you win this one

sorcery:  in ancient Hebrew the word for witchcraft/sorcery had a very different meaning  according to that definition it is actually something most teenagers i know practice,  it is to be kind to someones face and insult them behind their back.

falling stars:  why'd you even put this in?  they're shooting stars, as in rocks from space burning up as they fall to earth.

four legs:  that im not so sure of it doesn't seem to be a metaphor and we all know that they do have six legs.  although when you look at them on the ground or on a leaf the kinda do look like they have four legs.  and this is only saying what they can and can't eat so if most people at the time thought they had four legs it would say so too so they would know what it was talking about.

remember the book was written for an audience thousands of years ago, if it had started talking about microbes and other stuff people would have passed it off as the writings of a lunatic and the author would probably have been killed and any and all copies of his works destroyed.  and if he did manage to sneak it in somehow and we did find it there would be no need for faith then, and that's the whole point of religion YOU NEED FAITH. 

so lets just agree that we will believe what we want to and nothing any one says will change that.  and here's another reason to have faith,  if i'm wrong and there is no god that just means that i have wasted a few hours a week going to church and praying.  i get to die relatively happy thinking that i will go to heaven.  if i dont believe in god and im wrong, i get to have a bit more time and less brain power, but when i die ill spend all of eternity being tortured in hell.

[atomic7732]

You must realize, that actually, the point is God told these people, who then wrote it down FIRST in Babylonian or some language. Thus, translations might change it a bit too!

Keys: people, translation

EDIT: Sorry space guy. Didn't read yours, but mine sums it up right here. lol

[APODman]

I'm Atheist.

About Genesis the problems starts at the very beginning:

Genesis 1:1-2
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness {was} upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

But this is a impossible situation.

If the Earth did not have form so this means that its mass was not sufficient to form the actual spheroid body, so its gravity would be too small (on average just over 500 km bodies can have spherical or spheroid shape) to keep water in surface or atmosphere about it.

And according to Bible, the atmosphere was established subsequently by a "watershed" that already existed, but the water, without atmospheric pressure, it would have simply vaporized, there is nothing to divide or where the "spirit of God" skim in his routine flights.

So the Genesis already started wrong. Not even their division into eras, as some "moderates Creationists", save the issue, quite the contrary, it would aggravate the problem.

[ ]´s

[atomic7732]

Also, just finished what space guy 1 said, and your last statement makes sense. Perfect time for a 4 way chart thingy.

[Bla]

dragons:  could easily explained by exaggeration, or a metaphor (such as the beast in revalations)

It seems odd to use dragons as an exaggeration, but maybe that's just me. Take for example Job 30:29, where Job says "I'm a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.". He mentions a fantasy being (the dragon) in a sentence, using it in the same way as a real being (the owl). I don't buy it as a metaphor, but if you believe it, ok.
In Psalm 74:13, god apparently divided the sea by his strength and broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. Again, I won't buy that as simply being a metaphor or exaggeration, but it's subjective, so...

satyr:  I looked it up on the NIV version (as it uses the most modern language)

Modern language is fine, but I don't see why they suddenly have to replace all the fantasy beings with real beings now that we've found out that the fantasy beings probably only were fantasy beings...

were is the passage word for word:  But desert creatures will lie there,
       jackals will fill her houses;
       there the owls will dwell,
       and there the wild goats will leap about.

As I mentioned, in the old versions, at least KJV, the leaping goats were dancing satyrs.

and there is no isaiah 34:34

Sorry, I meant Isaiah 34:14.

leviathan:  could be another metaphor and science has never proven that it doesnt exist, just like the giant squid

Science has never proven there is no teapot orbiting Mars, that there are no gods, tooth faries, witches, satyrs, dragons, Loch Ness monsters etc. You can't observe lack of existence, so you can only disprove existence by logic, like a two-dimensional cube etc. But the burden of proof is on you who claim that there are such beings, not on the Scientists to disprove them.
The whole chapter Job 41 is used to describe Leviathan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan
In Psalm 74:14, just after breaking the heads of the dragons, he breaks the heads (note that it has multiple heads) of Leviathan:
"Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness."
If it were just a metaphor, I'd assume it wouldn't become meat afterwards.
And later in 104:24-26 leviathan seems to be described as a real being again:
"O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein."
In Isaiah 27:1, god apparently decides to kill leviathan again: "In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.unicorn:  NIV states:  22 God brought them out of Egypt;
       they have the strength of a wild ox.   every other passage you posted says wild ox here  (and i can see that you used probably the KJV)[/quote]
Again, it seems like they simply replace the animals once they find out they probably don't exist.
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

one give away is that it says hornS of a unicorn.

It says horns of unicorns, both are plural:
"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh."
Same about Psalm 22:21.

cockatrice:  the NIV calls them vipers.
Another example of word meaning changing over time

The meaning of the word certainly hasn't changed, but apparently it depends on how you translate the Hebrew versions.

flat earth:  remember at the time they had no idea that southern Africa, the Americas, east Asia, Australia, Antarctica, etc. etc. even exist so to them the world might as well have been flat.

So the bible is apparently not the true word of god. I mean, the god could at least have got the facts correct in the only book he was going to give humanity. People in the bible are imagined to have spoken with god, so surely he could've made the message clear to us and the facts correct.
http://www.goatstar.org/the-bibles-flat-earthsolid-sky-dome-universe/#flat%20earth
In multiple places, people who should've spoken with god speak about Earth as being flat.

four corners:  even today we say things like ends of the earth,  even the earth has no ends its just an expression.

Yes, but the fact that we use the expression today doesn't have to mean that it wasn't taken as fact earlier, as you might know scientists who claimed The Earth was round were killed by the church in the start.

and about the seeing all the empires thing they only knew about the ones in (and around) the holy land it is possible i think to see land controlled by every empire known then from a very tall mountain.

Jesus was taken to a mountain from which he could see every kingdom of The Earth by satan. So are you saying Jesus only knew about the few kingdoms around the "holy land"?

immovable earth:  it does seem like it from the surface. remember the bible is not a scientific text

Certainly not, that's exactly what I'm trying to show people, that the bible is a book of fiction as any other "holy" book and that we should not quote it for truth, kill in the name of it, seek our morals in it etc.

giants:  this is what the NIV says,  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.   okay i have no idea what it means you win this one

Apparently, giants were replaced by 'Nephilim' in NIV. I've never heard the word before, but it seems like it's the same thing.

sorcery:  in ancient Hebrew the word for witchcraft/sorcery had a very different meaning  according to that definition it is actually something most teenagers i know practice,  it is to be kind to someones face and insult them behind their back.

I don't think these verses refer to insulting people behind their back. The stories in the verses clearly contain or are about magic, try looking them up.

falling stars:  why'd you even put this in?  they're shooting stars, as in rocks from space burning up as they fall to earth.

Revelation 6:12-14:
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
The sixth seal is opened and there is a great earthquake, the sun becomes black, and the moon red, the stars fall from heaven, and mountains and islands move around. The whole scene seems absurd, and again you can interpret the stars as a metaphor of shooting stars (but remember, when we long ago began to say 'shooting stars', we thought, like in the bible, that they were not meteorites, but really falling stars). Just because we know what it is today and still use the old words for it, it doesn't mean the old usage of the old words gain the modern and known meaning. As you said, the bible isn't a book of Science, and should not be taken as truth.

The sixth seal is opened and there is a great earthquake, the sun becomes black, and the moon red, the stars fall from heaven, and mountains and islands move around.four legs:  that im not so sure of it doesn't seem to be a metaphor and we all know that they do have six legs.  although when you look at them on the ground or on a leaf the kinda do look like they have four legs.  and this is only saying what they can and can't eat so if most people at the time thought they had four legs it would say so too so they would know what it was talking about.[/quote]
But if the god who apparently inspired the book cared about truth, he could tell them the truth and show them that the book was more than fiction written by humans. This video shows my point very well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOfjkl-3SNE
The christian god could just have given us like one single fact we could later look back at to see that it wasn't fiction. Something that could've helped us advance, rather than walking on water and all that stuff that doesn't prove anything or help humanity advance.

remember the book was written for an audience thousands of years ago, if it had started talking about microbes and other stuff people would have passed it off as the writings of a lunatic and the author would probably have been killed and any and all copies of his works destroyed.  and if he did manage to sneak it in somehow and we did find it there would be no need for faith then, and that's the whole point of religion YOU NEED FAITH.

And why is faith better than evidence...? What I'm saying is that I don't get the central point of religion. Blind faith flies you into buildings, causes crusades, genocides, hate, promotes repression, makes people pray for cures rather than using our hospitals, makes people become close minded and stops them from thinking, stopping our progress, while Science makes us advance, gives us Technology, medicine and real answers about this awesome universe that is so much more fantastic than any religious shepherds could ever imagine thousands of years ago. As Richard Dawkins said, "Science replaces private prejudice with publicly verifyable evidence.". The point of religion is not good and is polluting this world more than any fossil fuel could ever dream of, and religions are fiction we should not have any faith in, but accept on the basis of evidence, like we should do with everything else. That's my point.

so lets just agree that we will believe what we want to and nothing any one says will change that.

If we can believe what we want, we're not believing on the basis of evidence, because evidence should convince people. If we decide that nothing anyone says will change our beliefs, we're being close minded and ignorant. If anyone can provide any evidence for their claims, I'll gladly accept them, but until then, I can't take it serious when it offers no evidence and I can't respect it when it offers no respect.

and here's another reason to have faith,  if i'm wrong and there is no god that just means that i have wasted a few hours a week going to church and praying.  i get to die relatively happy thinking that i will go to heaven.  if i dont believe in god and im wrong, i get to have a bit more time and less brain power, but when i die ill spend all of eternity being tortured in hell.

Pascal's Wager. At least I didn't hear The 2^nd Law of Thermodynamics this time.
Sorry, what if you're wrong about all the other gods in the world? Will you then go to Mosques, synagogues and all the other places every week?
And there's more. Imagine I had an imaginary friend who would also torture you for eternity after your death. I have no evidence for this claim, but require you to accept it on faith. And this imaginary friend requires you to sacrifice 90% of all the money you get and earn, 85% of all the food you get/find/buy/etc., not sleep for more than 2 hours a day, not talk to people with brown hair, not wear dark shoes, and I could go on. It is not impossible that this is true, and even though I'd say christianity can impossibly be true, even if it were possibly true with a tiny chance, I'd never waste one single second on it. I'd call it the coward's way out, and the god would know I didn't believe in him anyways. I don't know if you can, but I can't just believe what I want to. Not that I'd want to believe in any religion.

Here is "The Skeptic's Wager":
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but...will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” - Marcus Aurelius

Also, just finished what space guy 1 said, and your last statement makes sense. Perfect time for a 4 way chart thingy.

Hope my answer does too?

[deoxy99]

If you keep talking about this, I'll probably start believing in god.

[Bla]

If you keep talking about this, I'll probably start believing in god.

Why?

[deoxy99]

If you keep talking about this, I'll probably start believing in god.

Why?

I'm getting overloaded with religion and stuff.

[Bla]

I'm getting overloaded with religion and stuff.

It's your own choise, but if I'd overload you with atheism, would you then not believe?
Not that I would, but getting overloaded has nothing to do with truth. My post may have overloaded many people who don't have patience to read it all, think about it and respond, but in short, my post was against belief in god, if that makes you stop believing.
Nah, I hope it doesn't. Just think about what you read and you'll probably be fine.

Here are some funny vids about free will I just found. I found this great quote too, on YouTube:
”No matter what spin people ever put on it and no matter how Christians try to sugar coat it it all comes down to this:
Worship me......... or burn ”
- ClintonClinton33

So here they are:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
(Each video doesn't require you to watch any of the other two.)

[atomic7732]

btw, Where you said, why not make it clear or whatever, he didn't want us to be lazy. YOU MUST FIND YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION, and plus, maybe it didn't stick in their minds, they may have wrote it differently.

[infringement153]

I'm a Scientologist.

[Laura]

if i'm wrong and there is no god that just means that i have wasted a few hours a week going to church and praying.  i get to die relatively happy thinking that i will go to heaven.  if i dont believe in god and im wrong, i get to have a bit more time and less brain power, but when i die ill spend all of eternity being tortured in hell.

Yes, because God loves you!
By the way, did you realize that Hell in the form that you describe is a medieval invention?
The whole eternal torture, fire, brimstone, and so on. Invented by popes.
The original meaning is simply eternity in a self-imposed separation from God.
Apparently, this didn't seem quite awful enough to the average peasant, so stronger measures were put in place

[atomic7732]

So are you pro-religion, or not? I don't get you completley.

[Laura]

So are you pro-religion, or not? I don't get you completley.

Me? I think it's the single most harmful activity humans have ever engaged in.

[space guy1]

i actually agree there.  although if you mean for everything it would be releasing greenhouse gasses, but thats another thread altogether.

[sean2323]

I believe in god, but i belive, he just went like "Ope, time to make a universe!!!!! (Push universe button) there we go " Then he just watched it grow for entertainment

[atomic7732]

He was not meant to interact with us. Just help us (thus not telling us the perfect everything), maybe he even told us wrong, to test how smart we were to prove it wrong...

I don't know.

But it sounds good. 

[Bla]

btw, Where you said, why not make it clear or whatever, he didn't want us to be lazy. YOU MUST FIND YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION,

I don't see why it would make us lazy that he made his words clear. If he did, we would have a reason to follow them, and the world could be as he wanted. But he doesn't want people to believe. He's an omniscient, omnipotent god, so he knows every single result of every single action he could ever think of, including that the majority of people will not believe in him given the minds he is imagined to have created and the ancient myths and story books he gave to describe him.
The christian god really doesn't seem omni-anything. Here is a quote (sorry for all these quotes, but sometimes other people can just explain things better than me ):

The Bible is a comedy of errors. God creates the world with only 1 person...and that turns out to be a mistake, so he makes a companion. Two people in the world, one rule...whoops, that failed. Let's kick them out and make life more difficult, in the hopes that this will work...whoops, that failed. OK, let's drown everyone on the planet except for the one most righteous family...whoops, that failed. Let's confuse their languages...fail. Let's pick just one small group as the chosen group...fail. Let's ignore them for a while...fail. Let's pick and guide one king...fail.

Let's send ourselves down and take human form in order to sacrifice ourselves to ourselves as a loophole for a rule that we made...epic fail.

The god of the Bible has no better understanding of morals, human nature or reason than the backward band of bronze-age buffoons who wrote the book. Curious, that.

By the way, I really think the most lazy thing a human brain can do is to say "goddidit", rather than actually trying to find a natural explanation for it.

and plus, maybe it didn't stick in their minds, they may have wrote it differently.

But in large parts of the book, they have direct contact with their god and can speak with him, and his actions are clearly affecting the world, like when he drowned every single person on the planet, including babies and all the animals except for two or seven of every "kind" (depending on which verse of the bible you believe in). Or like the story of Jephthah.

He was not meant to interact with us. Just help us (thus not telling us the perfect everything), maybe he even told us wrong, to test how smart we were to prove it wrong...

I don't know.

I think he probably just doesn't exist, and that's the reason why we don't see any signs of him. But I've said that before.
I really don't see how god could've helped us, since what he has resulted in has been:
1: Dozens of genocides, the slaughtering of every single person in many cities around the "holy land".
2: The crusades.
3: After the christians took control of Europe, they pretty much stopped all Scientific progress for half a millennia. Imagine where we could've been now.
4: After the christians took control of Europe, it resulted in the most cruel punishments for things that really shouldn't be crimes, or are completely imaginary. People were burned and killed for being "witches", gays, atheists or simply for saying that The Earth was round.
5: The bible has inspired hate against many people. If you see what the nazis did, they simply took all the people the church had promoted hate against for centuries - the jews and gays for example. Without the church, that had probably never happened. And the hate continues today. Also, it tells us that men and women are not equal.
6: If the bible really was a holy book, it could simply have told us slavery was wrong and real morals things maybe along with a few facts we could use to progress, so it could help us like you said. But that's really not what it has done, I hope you can see it. I hope I'm not offending you by writing this, sorry if you get that feeling.

i actually agree there.  although if you mean for everything it would be releasing greenhouse gasses, but thats another thread altogether.

Seriously, we'd be far ahead of the problem of greenhouse gasses five houndred years ago if religion didn't exist and hadn't stopped Science, not to mention the crusades, the killing of nearly every single native American in America, the killing of so many innocent people and all this hate.
"Religion has polluted this world far more than any fossil fuel could ever dream of." - Pat Condell

[atomic7732]

the world could be as he wanted.

free will

Thanks.

Sorry to tell you, but I said that to myself. I said "I don't really know, but it sounds good."

You do have good arguments though.

[Bla]

free will

It will always boil down to "worship or burn". It's not really free will, it's like asking you to pay taxes or go to jail for the rest of your life... So the choise is completely up to you, right? I posted these three vids yesterday, and I think they explain my point very well:
Part 1, part 2, part 3.

Secondly, I don't think most people can just believe whatever they want. Even if I wanted to believe in a religion (which I would never want to), I still couldn't, because I can't just believe what I want, I require evidence.

And finally, what about those who haven't had the option to believe because they had never heard about your religion? The native Americans, Africans, Australians and Asians for example. They had never heard about christianity before the christian countries colonized them. You live in America, but imagine you were a native American, still living here, and that the Europeans had never discovered America. Does it really seem logical that you should be tortured for eternity after death, when you had no chance of knowing about that god?

You're welcome to respond to the rest of my answers if you want to, but I'll give you free will... Without consequences.

[Laura]

It's interesting that Nazis are frequently pulled off the shelf and dusted off as an example of how badly wrong things can go when atheists are given power.

[atomic7732]

That makes sense about if you didn't know about it. Some other sub-religion of Christianity says there are levels, like 5 or 4 or something...

[Laura]

That makes sense about if you didn't know about it. Some other sub-religion of Christianity says there are levels, like 5 or 4 or something...

Levels of what?

[Bla]

It's interesting that Nazis are frequently pulled off the shelf and dusted off as an example of how badly wrong things can go when atheists are given power.

And it is also often claimed that he did all his acts in "the name of evolution". Hitler denied evolution, and banned The Origin of Species from Germany.
Yes, it's doubtlessly the worst example ever. I usually show them this video, then they must get the point:
Hitler Was NOT Atheist!.

That makes sense about if you didn't know about it. Some other sub-religion of Christianity says there are levels, like 5 or 4 or something...

But is there really any evidence to suggest this? I mean, there's no evidence for christianity in the first place, so why even begin to invent levels within hell to make it less incompatible with logic and reality?

What about Noah's Ark for example. It is said to have contained two of every "kind". Even though "kind" would be translated into "art" in my language, where "kind" and "species" are the same word, never mind that. How would a single man, Noah, be able to collect two of every "kind" of animal from every continent in the world when he was 600 years old, and be able to build a ship big enough to contain all these "kinds" of animals?

[Laura]

Ah, levels of hell. Supposedly there are 7 heavens and 9 hells, all thanks to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
The following is a diagram of Hell according to the writings of Dante, which were endorsed by the Catholic church (hardly an obscure christian sect).

[Bla]

Barack Obama has really made some awesome statements about religion. I don't know if you've heard them, I hadn't before now, but watch this.

[atomic7732]

within hell

wrong. They aren't within it. But that is one of the levels.

I think there is heaven, one below it, an in the middle, hell, and then a worse one. Or something. idk

[Bla]

Okay, but... I think there's no heaven and no hell. How can you say I'm wrong about something that we have absolutely no reason to believe exists?
I mean, that's the default stance until there's reason to believe it, that it doesn't exist. Just like tooth faires. So why do you believe that?

And still, even if there really are levels within all of this, I still don't see how god could justify throwing those who have never had a chance to know anything about him into any level that is bad.
I really don't see why he is so obsessed with people worshipping him. He should care a lot more about if people are nice people and stuff like that, instead of being a celestial dictator.

Anyways, I don't really want to spend a lot of time on my answers if people just pick a small bit of them and respond to that... It's annoying to spend a lot of time, maybe hours on a post and then have most of it ignored. It's completely okay if people don't have time to consider and respond to all of it, but it'd be nice if they at least just said that that's the reason.