Losing My Religion 1 of 2

[avagage1]

and obama wants us to believe he is a christian

[MrPatrickKelly]

@avagage1 I don't know about you but I would consider anyone who believes in witchcraft, ghosts, spirits, fortune tellers and mythical gods unfit for the office of president. We need a president capable of dealing with real world problems instead of one who relies upon faith that his or her particular flavor of big daddy gods will take care of everything.

[youkeylaylee]

7:36, disgusting much like the people who inflicted that, the people who think that's acceptable. 

[Caffeinatized]

Shit. Believe in a 'God', or be beaten and/or shunned upon. If I found myself under these irrational circumstances, I'd believe in "God". I'd believe in "God" so I wouldn't be beaten to death.

[TempleOfSin]

Hi Mr. Patrick Kelly. When we die, we don't return to nothingness... our bodies nourish other life as other life nourished us. There's a beauty in that, isn't there?  A sort of stark beauty in the usefulness of our deaths?

I do not see any beauty in religion... only tragedy.

[Stereophonics81]

Excellent, Pat, just excellent. We need more of this. We need creativity that's going to make people think. I hope to be able to contribute something to the cause in the near future. I do believe that videos like this go a very long way. The Internet is a tremendous medium that can be used to promote rational thinking, and ultimately, change. You know that better than anyone.

[MrPatrickKelly]

@Stereophonics81 Thanks for the kind words Stereophonics. Imagine anti-Christian radio or anti-faith radio coming soon to a city near you. A station dedicated to debunking the irrationalism of 30+ years of faith based radio indoctrination. One that plays the top-40 interspersed with jingles and disc jockeys unafraid to challenge the irrationalism of faith.

[rgbda]

Excellent video.

[MrPatrickKelly]

Chris,

To begin with, I never said you should not fear death. Fearing death is a normal healthy rational fear. I think what I have been trying to convey to you is that there is no rational need to fear what comes after such as heaven or hell. You don't need to worry about meeting "the creator" because once your brain stops functioning everything relative to you stops as well. No consciousness. No memories. No feelings.

[MrPatrickKelly]

You return to the same infinite nothingness from which you came. The real point in all of this is that you should be free to live your life the way you want without others trying to scare you into believing that hell awaits those who don't believe in ghosts. Or for a more practical example, you should be free to enjoy your sexuality without the guilt, regret and shame that the concept of sin in religion causes.

[MrPatrickKelly]

Religion is psychologically unhealthy. It damages the human psyche and ruins people's lives. It is often the root cause behind suicide, genocide, honor killings and countless other manifestations of man's inhumanity to man. It drives people like you to try and convince people like me to accept a particular set of beliefs someone else has convinced you to accept. Your quoting the bible as truth is anything but harmless and "noble" is the last word I would use to describe it.

[MrPatrickKelly]

Put people of different faiths into the same room where they are all engaged in the so-called "noble" undertaking of quoting their particular flavor of scripture and the whole thing explodes into events like 9/11. Do you think for one minute that people who have learned to believe in the Koran appreciate hearing you quote from the bible which is essentially telling them that their beliefs are wrong and that they will go to hell if they do not convert to your faith?

[MrPatrickKelly]

Think about it Chris. You are throwing gas on a fire and you are willfully signing up to join the global war for religious domination. A war that no religion can win especially as humanity enters the information age where it is increasingly difficult for religions to flourish within informational vacuums.

[MrPatrickKelly]

We seem to have something in common. When I was a bit younger than you all my friends turned to drugs while I decided it was better to stay straight. Nothing worse than being the only straight guy at a party where everyone else is getting high. You tend to ruin the party and bring others down because you are not high. Something like an atheist walking in on a prayer meeting.

[MrPatrickKelly]

It is harder to believe in the supernatural with a skeptic in the same room asking a bunch of hard to answer questions. Just the presence of someone who does not believe what the rest of the group claims to believe reduces the effects of group pressure on everyone to believe the same thing. The child who innocently cried out that the king has no cloths on is another perfect example. The group was shocked when a child openly challenged their happy delusions.

[MrPatrickKelly]

Allow me to regress back to the idea that religion is psychologically unhealthy. You have expressed a perfect example of this as it relates to your own ego. It was not a god, ghosts or spirits that caused you to do the right thing and not follow your friends into harmful behavior. You did this! This is something YOU should be proud of and not a success you should attribute to the gods.

[MrPatrickKelly]

You have a right to own every bit of this accomplishment and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Doing so strengthens your ego, lessens feelings of inferiority and makes you feel good about yourself. Telling yourself that god made you do it turns you into a mindless sheep unable to affect or control your own destiny. Just as you need to own up to your failures you also have a right to proudly accept the fact of YOUR accomplishments.

[MrPatrickKelly]

So therein lays my problem with you Chris. Your mindless attempts to try and convince me and others to accept your flavor of religious beliefs is not only personally insulting but harmful to the world we both must live in together. If you must continue with your delusions I have no objection and that is your business so long as you keep them to yourself.

[MrPatrickKelly]

Remember it is you who came to my YouTube page and not the other way around. If you can't refrain from preaching on the internet then you put me in a position where I must respond to the untruths you are trying to sell. Why is it that so many like you want to be preachers these days? Is it the money or the attention?

Pat Kelly

[CookyCorvid]

How can we possibly hope to have moral accountability if there is no responsibility?

Jesus automatically forgives and accepts the serial rapist who accepts him. All it takes is belief, not works?

[christopherwalkins]

Thats right :). If it were any other way, it would be SELF-righteousness and not the rigteousness of God IMPUTED to us by faith in Christ. If a serial rapist were to realize his sinful condition before God and accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour, of course the good Lord would not refuse such an invitation. His love is not like our love.

[CookyCorvid]

The fact that God's love is totally indiscriminate really sucks for the victims. So much for them, right?

[christopherwalkins]

You automatically think of something negative. You think that the serial rapist will get away with what he did? No. The Bible says that God chastises every one whom he receives. He may be saved but he will still reap what he sows in this life (Galatians 6:7). God loves everybody and has offered His free gift of salvation for 2,000 years and sadly it is mostly "good people" such as yourself who reject it.

[CookyCorvid]

Even if "good people" like me reject this free gift. Why is hell a necessity? If attendance in Hell has no correlation to the goodness of the earthly life, then why have such an awful place?

[christopherwalkins]

God is eternal and holy. He cannot have sin in his kingdom. When we sin, we sin against an eternal God and therefore the wages are eternal. The Bible says that no unrighteous man will enter the kingdom of God but it also says that there is NONE righteous. None of us measure up to God's standards of righteousness which is why we can only accept salvation as a gift of grace thru the Lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins. Also, there are different degrees of punishment in hell.

[CookyCorvid]

This strikes me as an obvious logical issue:

If all A's are B's

No B's exist

Therfore, no A's exist.

On a complete side note: My primary issue with most theists is their assertion that they KNOW what they claim. They BELIEVE based on doctrine, but faith in the face of opposing evidence is stupidity. Too many issues arise when I examine the Bible for it to read as literally true.

[christopherwalkins]

Actually we all have faith. It takes faith to believe the theory of evolution. If i'm not mistaken, it has already been disproved. I know it has not and cannot be proved. Things like carbon dating are flawed. God has revealed to us through His Word that we are to put our faith in Christ and not in man's theorys. It also indirectly warns us against the theory of evolution.

[CookyCorvid]

Faith has NOTHING to do with with science. Science addresses the observable and isn't speculative.

A quick search of recent academic journal articles would reveal to you the thriving field that is evolutionary biology. It is embarrassing that you would assert that evolution has been disproved given its (almost) universal acceptance.

You clutch your ignorance life a life raft but the water is warm. Welcome to reality.

[christopherwalkins]

I don't doubt micro evolution. I know that organisms can slightly change over time so evolutionary biology, in reality, has nothing to do with the theory that all life came from single-celled organisms which came from nothing and that a fish eventually became a human. The bible says that God made man from the dust of the earth and that makes more scientific sense because we are made of the same minerals of the dirt.

[CookyCorvid]

Microevolution and macroevolution are not separate processes. One walks a mile a step at a time. If you accept microevolution, then

We are NOT composed of the same minerals as dirt. Not even close. The number of carbon molecules in inorganic regolith is small. Most minerals are silicates. We have MUCH more in common with a fish than with dirt.

Humans DIDN'T evolve from modern fishes either. Evolution occurs in a branching pattern, not linearly. We are distant cousins to fishes.

[christopherwalkins]

We are what we eat. We are made of the same vitamins and minerals that come from the plants that grow from the DIRT and we eat the meat from animals that eat grass that grows from the dirt. In essence, we are dirt. If you are talking about DNA similarity, that doesn't really mean anything because we have a remarkably close DNA similarity to bees as well.

[CookyCorvid]

Most plants grow in organic medium. Very few plants are tolerant enough to grow in inorganic soils. The distinction between organic and inorganic compounds needs to be distinguished here.

The dirt used to create Adam would have been entirely inorganic and thus have next to no chemical similarity to organic matter.

Your position would be better supported if you DIDN'T try to support it with pseudo-science.

[christopherwalkins]

OK what about this? God had the hebrews circumcise babies on the 8th day after birth. You know why He chose the eighth day? It is that very day when people have more vitamin K in their systems than any other time in life. If it weren't for for that amount of Vitamin K, there would be a prothrombin defiency and the blood would not clot properly. God knew that. Science has just recently shown that.

[CookyCorvid]

If God didn't demand the genital mutilation of babies in the first place, vitamin K would be irrelevant.

It is impossible to reconcile faith and science. You either believe in magic from the gods or natural processes. As no scientist has any evidence that points to a god and exclusively to a god, I remain atheist.

I understand your frustration at my persistence. I cannot and will not live a life of half-truths to appease the religious. In honesty, I am free.

[christopherwalkins]

I am not frustrated at all. I actually enjoy the debate. Do you think that circumcision is a negative thing? Again, SCIENCE has recently shown that males who are circumcised have a significantly decreased rate of contracting certain STDs.

Anyway, my point is that one of the reasons I can trust the Bible as God's Word to us is the fact that it contains actual observable scientific foreknowledge.

And if I can trust the Bible, then I can trust Jesus when He said He is the Truth (John 14:6).

[CookyCorvid]

BUT, the number one way to contract a sexually transmitted disease is to sleep around. One can practice mutual monogamy instead of circumcision to greater effect.

I strongly doubt that God chose to mandate circumcision so that the Jews could be resistant to the herps when they slept around. :D

If one is unsafe in their sex practices, uncut or not, they are going to catch something.

[CookyCorvid]

That being said, the foreskin provide access to a number of STDs including HIV. An uncircumcised individual IS more likely to catch HIV from their partner in the case of unprotected intercourse than a circumcised one. It doesn't really help that condoms aren't really made for the uncircumcised.

But, if one has intercourse with a partner who is infected enough times, they will most likely contract as well.

[christopherwalkins]

You're right about monogamy being the best thing to avoid STDs. The Bible even says that every man should have his own wife. In fact, I believe that STDs are an evidence that fornication really is a sin against the body as the Bible says. Circumcision during the OT days was a part of Jewish Law and in this age of grace, outward circumcision means nothing. It is the circucision of the heart that comes with accepting Jesus Christ as Saviour that really matters.

[CookyCorvid]

I can't live subservient to a God that doesn't even bother to show himself to the public.

It sounds too much like human beings making up stories. Why would a perfect god demand faith but instill his creations with questioning minds? It seems cruel.

[christopherwalkins]

We can't visually see God in the physical realm because God is a Spriit and we are sinful human beings. It is our sin that seperates us from God but we when we die and are absent from the body, we will see the Lord. Depending on whether or not you accepted or rejected His free gift of salvation by faith, you will go to Heaven or Hell. God did physically reveal Himself to mankind and people STILL doubted Him. They even crucified Him.

[CookyCorvid]

I wasn't the chance to see God. God created me to be skeptical and provides me with no proof? That sounds like he WANTS me to fail here.

I don't care about what people thought they saw 2000 years ago. If I have no reason to believe something beyond threats, I won't believe it.

[christopherwalkins]

If you see it as a threat then you cannot be saved. In order to be saved, you need to realize what you need to be saved from. If you refuse to aknowledge you are a sinner, then you will see no need for a Saviour. Thus, you will reject Him.

[CookyCorvid]

Meh. The ethical debate quickly bores me.

I can't agree with the Bible on a scientific basis this leads me to reject the rest.

[christopherwalkins]

So you bow down to science? That's evidence that you are guilty of the first sommandment: thou shalt have no other gods before me. Science is your god it seems. Nevertheless there is numerous scientific validity and foreknowledge in the Bible but it seems that your heart is so hardened that you will still reject it even if I were to show it to you.

[CookyCorvid]

I worship no god, be it natural or constructed. It is possible that there is a god, I can admit that. But Christian God isn't logically or evidentiallly feasible.

Science is just a method of observation not a deity. I find the real world cool enough without superimposing mythology.

[christopherwalkins]

But you can think of a God, in YOUR mind that to YOU is logical? Again, that is idolatry.

Face it. You do not want anything to do with God because it is all about YOU.

[christopherwalkins]

You need proof that you are a sinner? Have you ever told a lie? Used God's name in vain? Lusted after a woman? Stolen something? Disobeyed your Parents? Then you are a sinner.

[CookyCorvid]

I don't need anyone to tell me that I'm not perfect. I already know that.

I don't want MY life to revolve around something that doesn't exist.

I've reached my wits end with the preaching. I'm quite aware of Biblical principles. I was once a Christian myself. Keyword: WAS.

I think that there may be more out there than the Bible. I don't claim to know all the answers nor will I ever. But I would much rather live an honest life than a pious one.

[christopherwalkins]

Fair enough. If you say you once were a Christian, either one of two things are true: you never really believed in the first place and you were never saved or you are just going through a period of doubt. If the latter is true, the words of the Lord Jesus scream to you "never will I leave thee nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5). Once you believe the Gospel, you are kept by the power of God and are eternally secure no matter how much doubt you may experience.

[CookyCorvid]

There is a third possibility where I once truly believed and now do not.

I do not see myself ever going back to Christianity. It is a remotes possibility, I suppose.

I now believe that my faith was based on desire not truth.

Side note: Using the Bible to convince an atheist of anything is pretty ineffective. If I don't believe that the Bible is gospel, why would I hold it higher than modern perspectives?

[christopherwalkins]

The Word of God is the Sword of the Spirit(Ephesians 6:17). Just because you tell me that the Sword is dull or ineffective does not mean I should cease to use it. Would it make sense to do that in a physical sword battle?

Biblically, believing the Gospel that Jesus Christ died for your sins is what saves you and once saved, always saved. That third possibility you mentioned is the equivalent of truly believing but your faith being shipwrecked but it seems that you never really trusted Christ.

[CookyCorvid]

It doesn't make me feel sad that I 'never really trusted Christ' as you so aptly dictated.

Your scare tactics mean nothing to me. I don't claim to know the answers and distrust those who do. It is a part of human nature to ask hard questions. I think that I'd rather trust observation over faith to answer them.

I understand why you wouldn't listen to what I have to say, though. My ideas are dangerous to you because they are substantiated by troublesome evidence, not docrtine.

[christopherwalkins]

I didn't dictate anything. i'm simply telling you what it seems to me. Only God truly knows the hearts of men. Nor am I using any scare tactics.

You seem to think that evolution is observable. There is no way you can observe one creature turning into a completely different creature. The science in the Bible IS observable such as the stars being too many to number, the earth being spherical, the sun moving in an orbit, mountains and valleys exist on the ocean floor, and more.

[CookyCorvid]

You say that things 'seem' to be a certain way to you, then claim absolute knowledge of God. How do you know that you aren't mistaken about your God?

Evolution doesn't claim that one species pops out of the womb of another. Speciation acts on a population over a LONG TIME.

1) We observe changes within a species over time.

2)Eventually these changes can cause reproductive isolation between species.

3) No gene flow causes independent evolution, thus divergence.

[christopherwalkins]

How do I know? Because I have faith. Of course, my faith isn't perfect because I am an imperfect individual. The important thing is that God has revealed His simple plan of salvation in the scriptures and I have believed Him. Evolution does not account for man's sinful nature and why men continually find themselves utterly helpless apart from God. Evolutionists say we are just animals and life is one big accident. I refuse to BELIEVE that.

[CookyCorvid]

Belief is dandy but it is not knowledge. One can have faith in a number of false propositions. You understand this because you believe that Hindus are wrong in their faith.

You BELIEVE that God revealed himself through the Bible, but you do not know it.

I'm also confused at the 'helplessness' of being apart from God. Many cultures are without your notion of God and are far from helpless.

[christopherwalkins]

In Hinduism, there is not even an agreed concept of who God really is. The founder of Budhism did not even believe in God. If one looks at all the world religions, including Islam, in light of the Bible, then all of that confusion is cleared up "For God is not the author of confusion..." -1 Corinthians 14:33.

[CookyCorvid]

If God is not the author of confusion, why would he give two separate accounts of the creation of man in Genesis?

The first humans were created, both man and woman, on the fourth or fifth day of creation in Genesis 1.

Yet chapter 2 states that there was no man to till the Earth on the seventh day. God created Adam, the 'first' man after this point.

Sounds pretty confusing to me. Which of God's perfect ineffable accounts is correct?

[christopherwalkins]

Nope. God created man on the sixth day (Genesis 1:27-31). In the second chapter, it was just a more detailed repeat of the same story of the creation of man.

[CookyCorvid]

I believe that you got me there. I misread Genesis 2:4.

I prefer to debate anything BUT the Bible. It gets so technical when it doesn't matter in the end. I don't really care the Bible commands because I don't believe it is the word of God.

I'm a scientist not a theologian. The only interest I have in Biblical claims is to see if they are consistent with observation.

[christopherwalkins]

Well i've given you a few examples that are consistent with observation. The Bible is not a science book but where scientific matters are brought up it is pretty consistent considering how old it is. Personally, these things are not what prompted me to believe though.

[CookyCorvid]

The only problem that I have is when the Bible contradicts observation and people still believe that it is the inerrant truth.

I think that the Bible contains a lot of wisdom. The problem is that it contains a lot of culturally dated information as well. I just find it troubling that scientific measurements can be consistent and predictive but people dismiss it because of Biblical 'truth'.

[christopherwalkins]

The Bible does contain a lot of wisdom and it actually says that "wisdom is the principal thing" (Proverbs 4:7) which is another reason why I value the Bible so much. It contains the wisdom of God. As a matter of fact, the book of Proverbs was written by the wisest man who has ever lived - King Solomon. It is my conviction that where science seems to contradict scripture, it is man and science that is in error and not Scripture.

[CookyCorvid]

Please don't tell me that you are claiming the mountains on the ocean floor are from the Biblical flood.

The 'mountains', which are really ocean ridges, are a product of plate tectonics. Oceanic plates are diverging and are being subducted because of convection in the Earth's mantle.

The sun does not move in a geocentric orbit.

The earth is spherical due to gravity.

Science already answered these questions. We don't really need to credit a giant invisible dude anymore.

[christopherwalkins]

The only reason why I mentioned the decreased STD risk factor was because you referred to circumcision as mere mutilation of babies and I was trying to prove that there may actually be some health benefits to it.

[CookyCorvid]

I understand, but the health benefit self refutes Biblical principles. There would be NO REASON to be more resistant to STDs via circumcision if one is monogamous.

Sex, outside of the disease risks mentioned, is actually very good for the body.

[christopherwalkins]

Let me rephrase: the whole Bible is not TO us Gentiles. Only Pauls Epistles (Romans - Philemon) are but the whole Bible is FOR us.

[christopherwalkins]

"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called" -1 Timothy 6:20

[CookyCorvid]

Most of the wickedness (I'm talking dishonesty and hate) comes from the mouths of the faithful in my experience.

[CookyCorvid]

Your one example of possible Biblical enlightenment is overshadowed by other claims which are wrong.

Earth was never subject to a massive catastrophic flood that covered every mountaintop.

1) Geology flatly rejects catastrophism.

2) The amount of inbreeding depression produced from 4 remaining breeding couples of humans is unobserved.

[Savior20061]

Why do I get the feeling that when I do my research I will find out you are wrong?

[Savior20061]

Things are getting worse because of America's issue with credit. That has nothing to do with God.

As for crime on the news, they show it disproportionately compared to good news because bad news sells better.

[Zoetherat]

... continued

You believe that if a good god exists, it punishes ppl for not believing it exists even though it hasn't shown them it exists (and even though it's capable of showing them it exists). That's illogical. It's like believing in a square circle. Hence, even if a God exists, it is not your version of God.

[Zoetherat]

"Your only hope is that there really is no Hell."

No. You're only seeing two options- Christianity and atheism. There are thousands of different religions and an infinite number of possible versions of God. Any of those could be true. They are all possible options.

However, no one believes in something because it is possible. We believe because evidence and logic point to it being true.

[christopherwalkins]

Religion will not get you to Heaven but it will definately send you to Hell. Salvation is not found in a religion but in the Person of Jesus Christ. No religion can guarantee you will go to Heaven (no, not even Islam). God's plan of salvation is clearly revealed in His Word and it is a free gift but we must accept it by faith. Religious people keep trying to add another rung on the ladder to Heaven but the higher they build it, the further they will fall from God's grace.

[Savior20061]

And why should I believe you? Judaism. Islam. Christianity. They all claim the same things. Believe what I say or you go to hell. How am I supposed to know who's right? Because they say so? But everyone says so!

It's almost like gambling. A stupid game. You have to hope you have the right card, because if you don't you are doomed.

[christopherwalkins]

Judaism and Islam say that you have to work for your salvation but in reality nobody measures up to God's standards of righteousness. "There is none righteous, no not one" -Romans 3:10. "But God commendeth His love toward us, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" -Romans 5:8. "But to him that WORKETH NOT but believeth on Him (Jesus Christ) who justifieth the ungodly, his FAITH is counted for righteousness." -Romans 4:5. Abraham believed God and it was counted for righteousness.

[Zoetherat]

Christianity is a religion. Your belief in Jesus, heaven, the bible, and the belief that one needs to believe in Jesus in order to get into heaven and avoid hell are all religious beliefs that are a part of the Christian religion (one interpretation of it anyway).

[Zoetherat]

... continued

Obviously, all members of the Christian religion will accept salvation thru Jesus Christ and the bible. Obviously, all non members will not. So when you say that ppl need to accept Jesus to get into heaven, what you're really saying is that ppl will be rewarded for being members of your religion and punished if they're not.

continued...

[Zoetherat]

... continued

For all practical intents and purposes, you believe that an all good God will reward Christians simply for being Christian and punish non Christians simply for being non Christian.

Is that something you really think a GOOD god would do?

[Savior20061]

Really? Why? Just because he doesn't believe in something that cannot possibly be scientifically proven?

He's going to hell for that? Just that?

You know nothing about him. Don't pretend to.

[christopherwalkins]

I do know based on his comments that he is still dead in his sins because he has not accepted Christ as his Saviour and therefore is hellbound. Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven (John 14:6). We all believe in something. Whether it's agnostic BELIEFS, evolutionary BELIEFS, or a BELIEF in Jesus Christ, our only hope for salvation. Therefore you are without excuse.

[Savior20061]

You're attitude is fairly typical of Christians.

"No matter how many lives you've saved, orphans you've adopted, charities you've donated to, or lives you've improved, if you are anything but a Christian, you are still going to Hell."

Whereas any bigmouth Christian who has done none of these things and has simply judged others his whole life goes to heaven.

No wonder the number of atheists grows each year.

[christopherwalkins]

Christians will be held accountable as well. The Bible says our works will be tried with fire and we will be rewarded for the good that we do but our bad works will be burned up and we will suffer loss but we will be saved (1 Corinthians 3:15). The unbelieving go to a different judgment, the Great White Throne of judgement and that is not a place you want to be because it is there that your degree of punishment will be determined instead of your degree of rewards at the Judgement Seat of Christ.

[christopherwalkins]

It is offensive to God to think that you can earn your way to Heaven by your own good works. NONE of us can measure up to God's standard of righteousness which is why we can only be saved by His grace through faith lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). God will not have boasters in Heaven. There are enough of them on Earth and nobody likes them.

[Savior20061]

Assuming of course that people who do good deeds brag about them.

So no matter what I do, I'm still worthless and sinful. Unless of course, I beg some unseeable, unproven sky fairy for forgiveness for being born a human.

[Zoetherat]

... continued

But even if he had, why would a perfectly good being punish someone for that? I wouldn't torture someone for eternity for not believing that i don't exist. I'm more moral than the version of God that you believe in.

Why would a good god judge someone based on faith, particularly since the biggest reason anyone has faith in a religion is because they were raised in it. Why would a good god reward us for having an irrational belief in a religion rather than living a good life?

[christopherwalkins]

Your missing the point. Good works are good and profitable unto men (Titus 3:8). Not unto salvation. If it were profitable unto salvation, WE would get the glory in Heaven instead of our Creator and people would be walking around saying "well you know what I did to get to Heaven...". Jesus spoke of this in a parable. Between a person who says surely I will go to Heaven because im such a great guyand a person who says Lord have mercy on me a sinner, the latter will go to Heaven.

[Zoetherat]

No. You're missing the point. I know the bible says that. But i find it unfair, unjust, and contradictory to the concept of a good God. Repeating bible verses is not going to make it more fair or more just.

The parable is irrelevant because this isn't an issue of a person asking for mercy from god in order to get into heaven vs someone who doesn't.

continued...

[Zoetherat]

... continued

This is an issue of god not letting someone know he exists and then punishing them for not knowing he exists. Or punishing them for believing in the wrong version of god/ religion, even though one's religion is primarily determined by what we're raised to believe in.

The point is, salvation thru works would at least be fair. Salvation thru faith is unfair and mostly arbitrary no matter how you try to spin it. It completely contradicts the idea of a good, all powerful god.

[christopherwalkins]

I would appreciate it if you could limit it to one comment at a time and not flood my inbox. Thanks.

[Zoetherat]

You believe an all powerful, perfectly good being would punish us for not believing that he exists. If he really wants me to believe that he exists, then all he has to do is show himself to me. That's perfectly reasonable. If he's all good, he wouldn't punish us for not believing he exists, particularly when he hasn't bothered to give us reasonable evidence that he exists.

[Savior20061]

Right on man. It's about time America (aka Jesus-stan) woke up and realized that all the de-value-ing of self, and mindless paranoia and fear just aren't worth it..

[Savior20061]

Basically:

Everytime a Christian does something stupid, other Christians will pretend it has nothing to do with the Christian faith.

[incoherentpoet]

Religion. Stockholm Syndrome at it's finest.

[MINGO4445]

Fantastic man. Great video.