Why?

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Why would one worship a man who has been dead for centuries, a man who died not for sin, but for treason, and for the sake of the roman empire? A healer? a teacher? Sure, but the son of gOD? Religion is the escape of the feeble mind to a place where no one can hurt them. The average person cannot grasp that they live simply to reproduce and die. They need meaning. The man who's face and name adorns the walls of homes, and even the skin of of those who believe, gives them their meaning. Why though? Why did this one man become the symbol of life and hope for over a billion people? Fear, and he knew how to ease that fear. He was an intelligent man, he knew to a point what he was talking about, but he was simply a man. When he died, he died. That was it. He was never resurrected, he never came back as that is not possible. Then why to this day do people look to the sky and tell him their deepest desires, their worst problems, their pointless wants and needs? They talk to themselves to comfort themselves, believing that Jesus will provide for them. Always depending on someone is not a way to live, and it is made worse when depending on someone who is not even alive. The human race has evolved and become more intelligent over the past few thousand years, yet they still cannot go through life without needing a higher power, without the need for a reason.

Go back in time, read history. Research mythology, and look, and learn. The similarities between Christianity and other religions are numerous and amazing. As I have yet to thoroughly research it myself, I would embarrass myself by explaining at this point and time, but be sure I will explain.

Another big problem I have with religion is faith, belief. "Just have a little faith." Just have some faith." "You just have to believe." Well I say NO! I don't want to have faith, I don't want to believe, I want to KNOW, but we cannot know, can we? We can only believe, we can only have faith, right? Right? Wrong. Here is where I will piss off the people who I haven't already, and those with the patience to read this all.

Tell me, what do you know? You know that water is wet, you know the sky is blue, the grass is green, and sex is great. You can see all this. You can feel all this.

What do you believe? There is a man in the sky. That there is a kingdom of peace and happiness far above the clouds, and one of hatred and pain far beneath us. You can not see any of this. You can not feel any of this(you say you can, but what you feel is emotion, I'm talking physical truths).

Which of these is more feasible? Even die-hard Christians would be stumped by this. The truth is, all that is around us, all we see, these are elements, atoms, chemical bonds and reactions. It is true that far above us it is peaceful, and far below us it is extremely hot, but it's is space, and Earth's core, respectively. You say Heaven and Hell are not on the physical, but the spiritual plane? Well think some more, if it is not energy, it cannot exist. What manner if energy is spirit? Is it a gas? Is your soul made up of hydrogen, of oxygen? It's not solid, all religion agrees on this. If it is a gas, where is it kept while we are alive, how can they not find the chemical makeup of the soul within the human body? Easy, what we perceive as the soul is merely consciousness. We as humans stand alone in that we posses the ability for conscious thought. We have a sense of individuality. We think, therefore we are. That is the soul. Complex chemical reactions occurring in the brain, being transformed into what we perceive as thought. Backtracking a bit, I've heard say that the soul is the leftover energy of our body, released after we die. Well, no. When we die, all energy is released as heat. If you know anything about what happens when you die, on of the main things is loss of heat. The body cools off. Is this cooling off the soul leaving? It is the energy, no longer being used to sustain life, being released as heat to go find work somewhere else.

Where does this leave us? Why then do we live if there is no reward or punishment? It's the way of nature. We are just lucky chemical reactions on a lucky ball of rock. In the perfect place, with the perfect circumstances, the perfect reactions took place. Water formed and expanded, and from that all else has risen.

A wolf is born, it feeds, it grows, it kills, it eats, it reproduces, it dies. From it's actions, more wolves will be born to repeat the cycle. It is the same with humans. That is why we live, to create life. That is the answer. That is the big mystery, that is the meaning of life.

Thank you, and goodnight.

I welcome feedback and debate.

I'm an Atheist too, and I find it more feeble-minded that you had to drawl out a long post telling religious people how stupid they are.

Look, I don't see how a religious person could possibly believe either, but it's not my place to tell them they can't or shouldn't. That's their business, as it is mine if I don't believe.

A truly intelligent Atheist would be content to hold their views on the matter, for their reasons, while allowing others to hold their own views for whatever reasons.

I'm non religious (I'm not calling myself Athiest to avoid the stigma of being a smart ass know-it-all), and I think this post is stupid. Life is subjective, as is everything in encompanies, so you can't say "life is meaningless" as if it's fact when most of the world don't agree with that

If G-D created the human race (from a pile of dirt, at that) then we are all the sons of G-D.

ruveyn

the core things of christianalty.

1. jesus is the savior
2 he died for our sins
3 he is the son of god
4 god want us to have a loving relationship with him.

we human dont know how many forms of energy there are.

also no one can tell me miricles do not happen... I have seen them take place..... I have had prophecy... have athist here ever been to a pentacostal church or any church for that matter....

jamesp420; apparently around 2000 years ago the guy made a hell of a historical impact. Whether that was sheer coincidence or luck a guy reformed Judaism so much and apparently impressed enough people that today, in 2009, there are over a billion people adhering to his train of thought. Like Orwell mentioned, while we didn't have the stored and accrued knowledge that we have today its hard to figure that they weren't cynical of people with claims like these and especially in a heavily urbanized area, full of frauds, and full of - as Henriksson mentioned - people who were trying to call themselves the 'Messiah'.

Aww heck - you came up with an article, I'm doomed. Guess I have to take the snake oil cabana somewhere else now .

Never heard of either of these guys, Holding or your author, but if they're still alive it sounds like they could use a romantic getaway together. I typically don't fall into the trap though of trying to explain away someone else's blunders, or someone else's ability to exploit those blunders. I'll admit that they both sound like expert cherry-pickers and Holding gave your guy an advantage by coming before him thus giving him an absolutist argument to peel apart which is all too easy.

I wasn't trying to change anyone's views you know. I was just putting thoughts into words. Stream of consciousness, though on a keyboard.

I say once again that Christianity might not be just a mistaken myth but also a form of bullying.

In other words, we might have more to do than just prove them wrong. They might be choking us into Christianity to follow their laws and serve them for a lying promise of reward. Theologians might even know that their arguments are fallacious. After these idiotic dreams I've had about God calling me a loser, we'll have to consider that Christianity just wasn't as nice as we wanted it to be.

The big problem is going to be to convince Christmas-lovers that Christ believed in a furnace, that he'd have us cut off our limbs for sinning, and that we are cursed for laughing, or being full, or having all others speak well of us. Can you imagine Jesus Christ (or Santa Clause) on Christmas day telling you, "Don't eat too much! Cursed are the full! You, are you full? How dare you eat enough to be full on Christmas day!"

Or who could imagine, after hearing the carol Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Christ's teaching that "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple"?

Does the image of a traumatized and helpless fish being thrown into a fiery furnace remind you of Christmas? Read Matthew 13:47.

Like I said, this looks like widespread bullying of the lower classes, sugarcoated with good deeds to make it look like they aren't in it for themselves. What we need is a real solution for the less fortunate, one that doesn't involve lying to them.

This 'God' stuff is just silly. We need to see it disappear along with deceptive marketing, fine print, asterisks, .99 price values, and everything else that makes us a culture of egoistic leeches compared to a perfect society.