You are so absolutely right. I just haven't seen people of other beliefs riduculed, so I can't comment on it. Except to say that it is very wrong, regardless of who is doing it.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could share our beliefs and a positive and constructive way....doing away with animosity and contempt.

I don't agree with any one religion claiming to have all the right answers, to the exclusion of any other beliefs. I would wager that if we could be open enough...all of you would find bits and pieces of nearly every religion that sits just right in your soul.


......or not.

No. I have no problem with anything anyone wants to say, whether it be about evolution or someone's belief or disbelief in God.

I think I just addressed the rest of your post in my last post....lol. It's wrong to treat another person as less than yourself because your beliefs differ....no matter what.....and that applies to whether you do it, or I do it....or anyone else does it.

I never said skeptics were the only ones who ridicule. Boy I sure have seen some Christians talk down to non-believers as it he/she were some child that is to be pitied....clucking their tongues and acting all smug.

That isn't right....

(dangit...i hate it when i find typos after i've posted...)

It is unfortunate that anyone chooses to treat anyone that way.

Reminds me of an old Emo Phillips joke:
I was walking cross the bridge in my town and I saw a man getting ready to jump, so I stopped him and said, I can tell you are a good Xian man and you know g-d doesn't want this for you. He said why yes he is Xian, Baptist as a matter of fact. I said I knew it, Northern or Southern Baptist? Northern. Oh yea, so am I! Missouri Synod 1879? Why yes! Great so am I! St. Paul reclaimed charter 1911? Yes, so am I? Milleniamist or Rapturist. He said Rapturist, so i said Heretic and pushed him off the bridge!

Dang. I gotta go to lunch....be back in an hour!!

you get an hour for lunch

But you do it, too. Just look at the title of your thread.

You address the one party and leave the other one out.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

she may have had a recent experience with the one party and is speaking for herself on the other side. it may not be an issue with other beliefs for her...could be she had a reason

I'm not an 'atheist' in the most general philosophical sense. I suspect that the true nature of all existence is indeed spirital.

However, if we are speaking in terms of specific "gods" as described by specific doctines, then I supposed I do qualify as an atheist in that regard.

Why should it be in my interest to denounce these specific dogmatic picture of God?

Well, for one thing, I happen to be a human being living on planet Earth. These religions claim to have the 'word of God', the word of the creator of this universe and all of it's inhabitants.

Therefore as a human living on this planet I have a concern about what these words have to say.

After having read these words (specifically the Bible) but I imagine the Torah and Koran are very simliar, I find the words contained within to be very degrading toward both humanity, and the creator of humanity.

The doctine demands that God is a male. It totally dismisses the Yin aspect of nature and focuses entirely on the Yang.

The doctrine preaches male chauvinism. The doctrine has God betting with a supposedly evil fallen angel. The doctrine has God asking people for blood sacrifices. The doctine has God asking people to judge one another and stone 'sinners' to death. The very same doctrine claims that EVEYONE is a sinner.

So the paradox is that everyone should be stoned to death according to this doctrine.

The doctine claims that all of mankind has fallen from grace from our creator.

The doctine claims that God is so desperate that he had to sacrifice his only begotton son to save these sinners (who should be stoned to death)

In my humble opinion as a human being the doctine is an outrageously unbelievable proclamation that mankind is inherently evil and God is inherently desperate.

I see nothing good in the overall picture as a whole. Sure there may be tid bits of wisdom scattered within the stories, but overall it is a very negative picture of both humanity and God and claims that the only way to win God's love is to confess that you are unworthy of his love.

And to what end?

What is the purpose of all of this?

So that this self-confessed egotiscial jealous God can become the king of kings and lord of lords and have unworthy humans kiss his feet and do his will?

I see nothing productive in this religion. It demands that humanity is a disgrace to God, and it also suggest that the Earth and Earthy things are the realm of the devil. It's not nature friendly at all. It shuns the worship (of love) of nature by claiming that nature is the realm of Satan.

It's the antithesis of the pantheistic view that holds that God (or spirit) is ominscient in everything.

Moreover, the proselytizers of this religion are on campagnes to convert the world to this bigoted male-chauvinistic view of God.

They denounce all other religions and faith as being unworthy of God. They particularly view many pantheistic faiths as being 'devil worship' simply because those religions see God in nature.

The religion is clearly divisive.

It has caused division within it's own culture. Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, and Christianity are all various facets of this very same religious myth.

Yet look at how divided they are. They have become each other's worst enemies simply because they all disgree on what this supposed jealous God wants from humanity.

And ironically the most obnoxious proselytizers of all are the Protestants who actually protested against the idea that any MAN should speak for the Holy Spirit, yet that's all they every do!

The Protestants have become the epitome of hypocrisy.

I denounce the mythology and the religions that came out of it as being clearly divisive, bigoted, judgmental of other faiths, and basically a cancer of the spirit.

It's a picture of a genuinley unloving God who is more anxious to cast people into hell for not believing in a particular interpretation of the myth.

It's clearly ungodly IMHO.

So when I denounce this ungodly religion I'm not truly denouncing God at all. I'm denouncing what I see as a cancer of the spirit of humanity.

It makes no sense to have a God that divides.

If there is a spiritual essence to our existence that spirit is in all of us. Not just the believers of a particular interpretation of some ancient bigoted male chauvinistic dogma.

That's where I'm coming from.

I see it as a very negative desease of humanity. We need to move away from all this bigoted proselytizing and find a spirituality that brings people together and focuses on the Earth as being as divine as anything else.

We can't be rejecting Mother Earth as the 'realm of Satan'. That's a very unhealthy superstition that must be abandoned if we are to save our planet.

You know what? You're absolutely right.

However...I can't edit the title.....so sorry.

You are also correct. I was thinking of a few particular members whose posts have caught my attention lately....

Thanks for sharing that, Abra.

When people insist that a deity or God exists and call him by name and insist that 'he' created the world and they look at you like you are evil, lost or the devil himself because you have doubts in that, yes, that does piss me off.


I have no problem with people who believe in or talk about GOD. I just wonder exactly what they are talking about. Everyone seems to have a different idea about what (or who) God actually is.

I heard a preacher on television ask the question to the audience: "Are you in love with Jesus Christ?"

I can't stand that kind of mentality or question. First, I've never met any person by that name and neither has anyone else, so how can you be "in love" with them?

You can only be 'in love' with your personal idea of what you think that name or character represents or means to you.

To me, being 'in love' is a type of hypnotism. You are focused on a person completely and you have all kinds of ideas and expectations of what they are and in your mind, they can do not wrong. They are perfect.

In real life, we know that is why they say that 'love is blind' because you cannot see the flaw in the person you are in love with.

People see no flaws in Jesus and they are told that he is perfect. But Jesus does not exist. He is idea. He might be a personality that lived 2000 years ago and he might not be. But he does not exist today and he does not go to your church.

I also get annoyed when someone asked me, "Have you met Jesus?" and then invite me to their church to "introduce me to Jesus" as if there is going to be a person by that name at his church.

They are living in a fantasy land. Of course I am supposed to know that they don't really mean that I am going to go to their church and meet Jesus. But what if I had never heard of Jesus and what if I was actually expecting to meet a real person?

I would get there and think that this person is either sick, delusional or just deceitful, because there is no person named Jesus at his church.

I would ask people to stop pretending that he is real to other people who don't share your delusion.

JB

You could have left out the calling people delusional....but thanks for your comments.

Why? You wanted to know. You asked the question.

Hey I've been called delusional for my beliefs. It does not bother me.

I don't mind people who believe in God. I don't mind people who believe in Jesus and that he died for their sins. That is not what I am bothered by.

It is specifically those who talk about Jesus as if he were walking around the earth in the flesh and they expect you go along with their fantasy when you both know if he ever existed.. he died a long time ago.

If these people actually saw a guy who resembled Jesus in the flesh, robe and all, walking on water, they would not believe it themselves, and they would just call him a fraud.

It is those people who bug me. If they really believe that Jesus goes to their church and walks about in the flesh, then they are delusional. If they don't believe it, why would they expect me to play along with them and their invisible friend?

this is turning into a fascinating thread, thanks to the respondents and the OP.

wtg Minglers.

Alrighty then....

That isn't really what I was asking, but thanks for that. If you aren't constantly posting about the non-existence of God....then this wouldn't really apply to you.

Let me remind everyone that I am not saying that anyone cannot or should not post about their beliefs or non-beliefs....I was just curious about why some are so passionate about the tearing down of another's beliefs.

Sorry that those people bug you. There are all kinds out there....and some of them are kinda irritating...I agree.

Okay, I didn't mean to sound mean. I don't constantly post about there not being a God. I see no point in that. I don't know one way or another what God even is, so I don't take sides in debating whether it does or does not exist. I don't even know what that term GOD means.

My question is who is the post directed at?

Now THAT would be an awesome topic for a future discussion.