Any time someone tells you their Christian god is pro life and loves children, remind them of 2 Kings 2:23-25 when god tears 42 children to bits with bears just for teasing a bald man,
“ 23 He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” 24 And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys. 25 From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”

Then have them read psalm 137.9…
“ Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock: the children represent the future generations, and so must be destroyed if the enemy is truly to be eradicated.”

Then remind them that god killed every Egyptian baby out of spite against one man.

If you believe in the Judeo/Christian god, you must believe god loves to kill babies, he does it constantly, viciously, capriciously, and joyfully. If Christian’s knew their religion they would be 100% pro abortion….but if they knew their religion they wouldn’t be idolaters, disrespectful to their elders, dishonest, greedy, or selfish, they would live by the most important lesson of their religion, the golden rule…but they don’t even know what that is.

Jesus… Where do you get your fake statistics? 40 during Trump’s tenure? What asinine nonsense.
Sorry buddy, there were 323 mass shootings (4 or more shot) in 2018 alone. 434 In 2019. 614 in 2000.

Or are you saying Trump was not really president then…or ever?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2020

693 in 2021 under Biden, an increase but massive slowdown in the increase…what cons call a cut when talking about the military budget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2021

It’s telling that you never…NEVER cite your sources…obviously because you are embarrassed to say who suckers you into believing nonsense.

Wait…did you just claim GOD gave you your civil rights and constitutional freedoms? Then why do you oppose his long standing decision that abortion was a constitutional …and moral, ethical, God given right?

Edit: Also, the Christian God absolutely undeniably prohibits you from killing others, so what gives you the idea he also gave you the right to carry around instruments of death and use them at the slightest perceived provocation?
You must worship some other god…or do you contradict god’s commandments because you know better? Does your god also give you the right to a secret Ashley Maddison account? To covet and take your neighbor’s property and family? Clearly your god allows you to lie. You probably work on Saturday, the sabbath mentioned in those commandments, don’t you?
Bob, what god are you talking about? It’s not the Judeo/Christian god.

Religion isn't the basis for all "Good". Chimps don't have religion yet they show compassion, empathy and cooperation all the time. To say the Judeo-Christian God concept is the reason there is love ignores all the other religions and lost Amazonian tribes that produced "good" all on their own and actually advances the emotional background of racism.

I'm not really debating about the quality of the marriage, although I believe that would be far better to only love one person and stay with them your entire life. Your argument about the rates being skewed because they are highly religious; it's interesting that you choose to explain that away rather than count it as evidence for the opposing view. That's a classic case of confirmation bias.

When I said Christians raise Christians, I meant it to mean that you shouldn't be surprised that these men are raising their daughters that way. I think you should be thanking God to see a father in this day and age take such an interest in his daughters well being. They are following biblical principles which is exactly what they should be doing.

There are plenty of ex-christian atheists, I understand your point. However, a profession of faith doesn't make you a Christian; God has to do a work in your heart. You have to be born again and many of those "ex" christians never met God. There will be some though that did meet God and fell away from the faith.

@harlequinn

Yeeeaaaaaah...

Judging by the incoherent rambling of that last post, it looks like I struck a nerve. I mean, come on man. You claim you can't remember everything you read, but in this case you somehow didn't remember that the Christian god is omnipotent--a fundamental doctrine of every major denomination of Christianity in existence today? That's seriously your defense?

Quit your bullshit. You tried to shut down @newtboy and got yourself shut down instead. I'm sure that's frustrating and contributed to the nonsensical nature of that last post, but still....

To answer in all seriousness your subsequent questions:

1) Yes, atheism has brought me immense peace. It felt great to let go of religion--Christianity specifically--especially all the guilt-tripping and fire-and-brimstone bullshit that went along with it. As a side bonus, I felt relieved that I was no longer financially subsidizing a bunch of pedophiles (I left long before the major scandals broke in mainstream media).

2) No, I'm not angry but I am certainly annoyed at all the numb nuts who keep blowing themselves up, discriminating against the LGBT community, and trying to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies using only their Bronze Age (or older in the case of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism) superstitious beliefs as the rationale for their behavior.

3) No, I am not vegan. Just had fried chicken for dinner tonight.

4) Yes, I had to Google the exact passages but I knew the bible said somewhere that god was omnipotent because, as a former Christian, I'd read through it several times before. Sorry to hear you are so "forgetful" about the holy text that forms the backbone of your religion. Actually, I know you're not forgetful; the point the guy in the video is making is that most Christians choose not to look at the parts of the bible they don't like or even worse make ridiculous convoluted arguments to try to explain them away (as you tried to do here in explaining away god's omnipotence/omniscience).

Moving on, the "tenability" of Christianity has nothing to do with "Tradition." The whole thing is a house of cards. It doesn't matter in the slightest whether you want to interpret any holy text in the world literally or through some collective interpretation by an ostensibly educated priest-class. What makes all religion untenable is the fact that it is 100% made up bullshit. There is as much evidence for the existence of a Christian god as there is for Zeus, Thor, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy (i.e. none).

Finally, no, I don't need to come up with a system to replace religion. It already exists and it is called "using reason and compassion." The idea itself that we need some system to control us or protect us from ourselves is archaic and frankly anachronistic in this day and age.

Now, I mean this in all seriousness--I wish you the best. I was you once, a long time ago, trying to stave off the cognitive dissonance of being a rationale human being yet also believing in a religion. I'd argue with atheists just like you're trying to do now. But the thing is... they made good arguments. The stuff they pointed out stuck with me. At first I'd shrug it off, but the facts nagged at me and nagged at me until I finally set out to prove those pesky atheists wrong--only to find out through research that everything they were saying was 100% correct.

Like I said in the previous post, you'll either face the facts or turn away and hide from them. I can't tell you if you'd be happier or not without religion--no one can. What I can tell you is that at the very least you would no longer be contributing to a collective hive-mind that has very real and very negative effects on the world we live in, regardless of whatever benefits the religion may bring to you personally. Either way, I sincerely wish you peace.

@harlequinn

Why should you re-read the bible? Because, like most Christians, you clearly demonstrated that you don't know what it actually says (which is the point of the video), and yet here you are telling @newtboy that he doesn't know anything about it except for hearsay. So... hypocrisy much?

But then you double-down and are now trying to argue with me that the Christian god is not actually considered omnipotent--despite me pointing out three places in the bible where it explicitly states "he" is. Although I'm not at all surprised that a religious person is arguing against facts, I actually agree with the sentiment. If a Christian god truly existed, one look at the state of the world would tell you that "incompetent" is a better descriptive adjective than "omnipotent."

Look man, I get it. You're invested in your religion. I was once too, and just like you argued with atheists about these kinds of arcane points (i.e. is the Christian god omnipotent?) before slowly realizing it is all bullshit and that humanity at this stage of development would be much better off without religion (and by religion I mean any philosophical way of life that uses "faith" as it's primary source for finding truth instead of rational thinking). I don't deny it served a purpose once as a unifying social force, but its day is done. One day you'll either come to the same conclusion or you'll ignore the mountains of problems it causes in the world because you feel it brings you some measure of peace or clarity or whatever. I hope it's the former for you.

Unfortunately, knowing a lot of religious people, I expect it will be the latter. In which case, I can only hope your religion brings you only happiness and you keep it from damaging others' lives as much as possible.

You might want to re-read your bible (I refuse to capitalize it).

Revelation 19:6:

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

Also Matthew 19:26 “with God, all things are possible” and Luke 1:37 “with God nothing is impossible” make it clear the Christian god is omnipotent without actually using the word.

And even if it wasn't explicitly written, in practice every major sect of Christianity follows the doctrine that the Christian god is both omniscient (i.e. going to judge everyone for their sins on judgement day) and omnipotent (i.e. can do anything, such as create a universe from nothing).

EDIT: So @newtboy's original comment stands. The bible's inconsistencies are too huge for anyone not completely indoctrinated into Christianity to ignore.

I can't speak to the majority of Muslims beliefs(as ive know only a handful in my life), but my experience with your average christian (someone who says they believe in a christian god) is that they are NOT okay with the things you have listed. This of course is just what i think based on limited real world interactions.

I don't understand this desire to try and "one up" scientific thought, as if the concept of a demiurge were religion's alone. It's not for man to decide what is truth and what is not, it is for us to discover only that which we may mechanically use, whether through ystem theories, mathematic constructs, or physically engineered structures.

Science may be harmonious but only if it is honest and seeks only that which is not fueled by attachment to being. Any reward, whether in heaven or on earth is a materialistic concept which separates us from the body of human experience. Rather than naturally progress within our own capabilities, we obsess over grand concepts of our narcissistic, non transitory being and the entity of of a God. Meanwhile, our minds suffer at the leaps and bounds that imagination inflicts upon our honest beings. Behavior modification for the sake of a concept you would seek to elevate over the hard earned work of the scientific process.

Again, I don't understand why you pounce on these sudden epiphany driven straws lying amidst a rigorously disciplined field as the sciences. You have straws with no tangible truth, only the ability to prove that, yes, you are a pattern detecting being. I can find a 1000 faces of a 1000 gods in a spackled piece of drywall, don't mean any one of them is real or if any were, that it's the god that I've put a name to.

Now for a lesson in system analysis: determining whether the pattern you've detected within a metaphysical concept is congruent with reality as we know it, or have you detected a false positive. Also known as the proof between a Christian God and every other concept of the concept of God, through all its faces back to its ultimate being: Infinity. The Infinity could be ANYTHING.

One big issue is that we are throwing our tax money away, thanks to all of our collective Legislative branches (which is what makes me laugh when anyone says that Obama is the biggest problem to this country; they apparently have yet to really look at all of the concerns that are listed due to each branch of the government). I can't believe how much new infrastructure has been built in my own area, BUT they are not doing anything about exceptionally old infrastructure issues (though I do believe Utah does a better job than other states; but just *barely* so).

But, it is also true that our taxes are "getting a break"; but an extended problem is that with all of this inflation we have not gotten raises to keep up with these changes. Plus various other issues (with costs for so many things getting out of control)...

This is an endemic issue, caused by many things. But there are multi-secondary issues that are contributing to this as well (like house costs, college cost--we are supposed to have a shortfall of 90,000 doctors in the future, I bet you can imagine what is causing that--and so many cost related issues); which is why the public is SO unwilling to pay a bit more for this.

Because our government misuses the money so badly already, we are so far in debt (oh but, that, is somehow all the President's fault; as though the President is the equivalent of the Christian God, but in a government sense...), and many other stupid issues akin to these.

Yahweh has NEVER given evidence of his existence. No more so than any other god anyhow. They all answer prayer equally and randomly well. They all claim to have made the universe/world, they all claim to be the true one... Near death experiences differ by culture expectations of that culture and don't all conform to the supposed Christian expectation... he has done nothing to make himself stand out from the rest of the gods that Christians dismiss. Heck, I've never seen a Frost Giant or evidence they ever existed, so clearly Odin has one up on Yahweh.

In the 4,000 years or so from Adam and Eve's time in the Garden to Jesus, Yahweh couldn't or wouldn't make himself known to the other races. He didn't reveal himself to those in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe, just to one tiny specific group of people in the Middle East. If couldn't then he's not the omnipotent, omnipresent god he claims, if he wouldn't that makes him a racist ass not worthy of following by picking one people to be his chosen people.

The only reason Europe became Christian was forced conversion when the Christian armies of Rome forced them to, which setup a tradition of most Europeans and later Americans being born into a faith. Were the exact same people born in Saudi Arabia they "would know that they know" that Islam is the true religion, or same in India but applying to Hinduism.

And saying that atheists have had supernatural experiences and can change to theism when talking about it, ignores the whole point of the video, especially the part when he talks about the linked Darren Brown video, which demonstrates that it is easy to make a spiritual experience happen that has no basis on any real god.

By way of example: I used to be a heavy evangelical Christian, I watched TBN and Fox News religiously (pun intended, see this old post of mine here on the sift from an old account that I couldn't recover http://videosift.com/usercomments/Charon... heck see my Revelations from the Word posts on my blog, http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/religion/revelations-from-the-word/ or more embarrassing my older political posts http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/politics/ which while progressive now, go to page 4 or so around June 2008 and back and you see a Libertarian and further back Republican with some crazy anti-vaccine paranoia , climate change denialism, science denaillism and other things I'm deeply ashamed of now)... I've had deep and meaningful spiritual experiences with god. After Republicans ruined Christianity for me (as the Republican party is clearly 100% against every teaching of Jesus... and yeah we can tick that off as being humans, but god does nothing to correct them, he may have spoke to my heart or whatever one wants to say to have more empathy, but over half the Christians in this nation still vote for a party 100% devoid of the teachings of the Jesus of the Bible while claiming to do it for Christian reasons) and I eventually lost faith (while Republicans are the reason I initially lost faith, they aren't the reason I stayed away, god is a dick is why I stayed away). After I lost faith in the Christian god, I gave paganism a try, and I've had just a meaningful spiritual experiences while worshiping at a Druid rite as I have at any Christian church. This is why people pick a religion, first by accident of birth (most people are Christian in the US because their parents were, and back to Europe where going back further they were forced to convert by invading Christian armies), second by choosing one that connects more personally with them... for many they see the hypocrisy of Christianity (and its general lack of empathy) but do connect with some form of paganism, and pagans generally have a patron god they serve above most others, and that god is the one they have a deep connection to, the same deep connection that Christians claim to have with Jesus/Yahweh... One doesn't drive a plane into a building killing 3,000 plus people without a deep and meaningful relationship with their god, and to dismiss t hat relationship as being deceived is naive and demonstrates a lack of empathy.

Now, I will allow the possibility that god does exist, but not in the form Christians propose, but perhaps closer to what the US Founding Fathers believed, but perhaps expanded a bit with more modern knowledge. A Deist like view. That this god somehow this god, created the energy and set into motion the laws of this physical universe that spun out from the big bang, but he's had nothing to do with anything since then. Perhaps all religions actually worship the same god but with their own culture's expectations and interpretations. However this would mean that all religions and lack there of are equally valid, which most faiths (aside from most modern paganism) doesn't allow for as their claim rests on being the true one.

I've rambled on far too long already so I'll leave it at that.

Care to explain where you think he's wrong?
What he said as I heard it is what I've always been told by christians...god, Jesus, and the holy ghost are the same thing...and so god sent himself to earth to torture himself for the sins of humanity that he himself created (both humanity and the sin).
Exactly what part of that is wrong? (not glib, flippant, or immature, just a straight question)

"The idea that your cat is the Creator of the Universe has no explanatory power. To have an argument that your cat is the Creator you need to provide positive reasons for it. The Universe is finely tuned: if design is an explanation than I wouldn't need to disprove anything and everything as being a potential Creator, I would simply need to examine the evidence for design to make a determination as to what kind of being this must be, and using Occams razor I could come to some definite conclusions about it."

And I would posit that any same test applied to the Judeo-Christian god would fail the test equally (given that "god did it" isn't a theory, it's a construct). For that matter, so would any other god you want to throw out there. Assuming an intelligent creator pre-dating the universe created the universe calls into question "How did this dude himself go about getting created?". That question can only basically be answered with "It's turtles all the way down".

How do you know that a Universe governed by laws isn't the signature of a Creator?

How do you know my cat didn't create it? Equal empirical evidence (none) of both constructs.

Why would you expect to see a grand cosmos such as this, with such awesome beauty, whirling away with mechanical precision? The mere fact of its existence let alone its operation and stability is something too grandiose to be automatically regulated to some accident.

Really? We happen to live in a time period called the Stelliferous Era in which stars exist. Too far in the past, they couldn't form; too far in the future, they will no longer form. So oddly enough, given that the conditions are at this particular time are favorable to life, life came into being and evolved. So if it's your belief that god created this universe to be human friendly, why'd he wait so long for the conditions to be right for us to exist? Why not just do it on Day 1? Or why didn't he wait longer? Why did the universe have to be human-friendly in the first place? He's god -- he can do anything, so why are humans bound to all these rules of math, physics and chemistry, like every single other bit of life from bacteria to Blue whales?

How do you know that a Universe governed by laws isn't the signature of a Creator?

How do you know it's not my incredibly clever, and possibly deific, cat? Again, same empirical proof (none).

Why would you expect to see a grand cosmos such as this, with such awesome beauty, whirling away with mechanical precision?

We live in a time where the universe is able to support life. Outside of this neatly-ordered era, we'd be plasma or neutrons.

Just outta curiosity, why is your creation myth somehow superior all the other creation myths out there? Apparently, and correct me if I'm wrong, your belief is that the Judeo-Christian god created the universe and you base this on the Bible. You embrace this belief, yet discard all other versions of the story of creation. Why is your myth "right" and all others incorrect?

NOMA as in how Dawkins criticises NOMA?

I think there's a subtle distinction between what NDGT is saying and NOMA, which is that i don't think he suggested that any religion should be given the position to present what they know as fact. He seemed to suggest that the American physicists he knows, if they are shall we say 'spiritual' then they are spiritual in a more open sense than being classed as any particular religion. Perhaps in the sense that they see no reason for there NOT to be different realities or even that the universe is not a part of something else. In that way they may be open to spirituality even if just in a general well-being sense, and use religious texts as interesting moralistic tales. If you believe in the possibility of something greater than yourself and that it is abstract and unlike anything we can imagine, then you could use the christian god as a 'good enough' placeholder, even though you believe in the physical universe as being separate to 'god'.

At the end of the day, no matter how cutting Dawkins can be, he himself knows that you can't prove anything about this god or that god, and ultimately anything to do with why there is this reality nor what any alternative might be. He's just a guy with opinions about how this place works too, and he's certainly not the smartest of us to ever have been.

Might you be putting too much focus on the (i think facetious) comment that it teaches how to go to heaven not how the heavens go? I think, or rather hope, that he was trying to say that there's no way to tell one way or the other, but he can understand why people feel comforted by it, why some people are moved by their own unique experiences to feel that way. Also that you can say you subscribe to something even whilst you hold your own completely modified version of it according to what you experience in this reality!