The absurdity of Christianity

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There's not going to be balance in the force or peace in the galaxy. So long as Disney keeps making sequels they'll always need another empire to fight.

^
I did notice that Satan is only supposed to punish people who annoy God.

Satan also brough knowledge to humanity, not unlike Prometheus (sp?) bringing fire to mankind.

Satan is like a cop. Punishes the sinners.

Except that he is like a cop who practices entrapment. Lures you into doing the crime, and THEN arrests you. Just to make his quota I suppose.

Kinda whacked.

Not pointless or inappropriate. Just not rational. If you cannot claim to know anything with certainty, then you cannot claim to know that any claims you made regarding Jesus and the Bible are even true. “Historical Jesus” claims aren’t falsifiable, either, so if hard evidence is required, why assume unfalsifiable claims are true? Why bother making claims regarding Jesus at all if those claims aren’t reliable or true? Doesn’t that just make you a liar? Not “you” personally, as in a personal attack, but anyone making those claims? Science carries with it the assumption that the senses are reliable for gathering and interpreting data, but how do we reliably conclude our senses and minds are reliable when we are unable to externally verify those very minds and senses without using the same minds and senses to do the external verification? You either fall into infinite regress or circular reasoning, none of which is rational.

I can only speak for myself. [continued - Cloudfront won't let me post it all in one go]

[continued]
Basically these supposed supernatural events can't be disproved or proved. I've never seen a supernatural event and I'd be very surprised indeed if I did see one. This and other considerations lead me to estimate the balance of probabilities to be in favour of the supernatural not existing. I don't exactly make claims about other people's religious beliefs except that I think they're wrong. Obviously nobody can be 100% certain that a thing doesn't exist. Just that if my life depended on guessing the correct answer to the question "does the supernatural exist?" then I'd feel a lot safer saying "no" than "yes."

Another way of explaining my position is, curiously enough, from a criticism of agnosticism by theists: "Theistic critics claim that agnosticism is impossible in practice, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist (etsi deus non-daretur), or as if God did exist (etsi deus daretur)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism#Criticism
I live as if God does not exist.
I would also draw your attention to Hitchens' razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." In terms of religion, if somebody goes around saying that God exists or Jesus came back to life, without evidence, others can just as rightly say the opposite without evidence. Neither is particularly convincing, but there are plenty of evangelists who make it their life's work to do just that. It's a rare sermon that doesn't presume God and the resurrection exist.

As for science, there are plenty of scientific studies on the fallibility of the senses. A good scientist is aware that things aren't always what they seem. You seem to think that scientists believe things that might be incorrect. On the contrary, it isn't a scientist's job to believe anything, only to test. Scientists are well aware that the most rigorous testing and critical thinking in the world isn't necessarily the absolute truth. But it's the best tool we've got for any practical purpose. You might not like evidence, and you can declare that attention to it is doomed to infinite regress and circular argument, and you can make this strange assertion that using evidence is irrational, but when it comes to figuring out what's really going on, I don't think there's anything better. Certainly beats repeating the same assertions over and over until the victim believes them, which seems to be the basis of most religious upbringings.

The prophecy of Lucas has come to pass. Mace Windu will arise from the dead and bring balance.

Well, supernatural events do happen and are responsible for your existence. There is no such thing as knowledge that isn’t revealed by God. Because God does reveal things to people, Christians have no reason to doubt their faith having experienced God for themselves. It’s kinda like telling an evolutionary biologist that evolution just does not happen when the biologist has personally witnessed speciation among, say, fruit fly or bird populations over a relatively tiny number of generations. It would be an exercise in insanity trying to believe what he witnessed didn’t actually happen. Hinging faith on the “safety” of a low probability just isn’t going to cut it when a person happens to be 100% certain that the Bible is correct.

I’m also 100% certain that Cloudfront sucks.

Hitchens fails on the grounds that any or all evidence, even actual, direct experience of something, can possibly be denied in the human mind. Suppose you put a flat-earther in orbit so he can experience the roundness of the earth for himself. All he has to do is say that evidence is not evidence to defeat the round-earth argument. That doesn’t mean that the flat-earther is correct or rational, but neither is the atheist or agnostic position.

I feel that traditional Christianity is dogmatic and rigid and doesn't make sense largely.

While I am not religious, I do believe Jesus existed, he was very wise, he was humble enough to know to travel the world to visit various seers to learn about the whole cosmos etc.

I think Jesus would be a bit disappointed in Christianity today, he did not mean for a religion to be named after him, he just wanted to spread the wisdom he learnt from yogis sages etc when he travelled for knowledge.

I think Christ is a metaphor for conscious awareness and that is what Jesus wanted for us.

As for God, I believe in a divine creator, who does not mind what it is called. I do not mean an insult when I say "it" as I don't think it has a gender, I don't think it is a person.

While I am not religious and respect that atheists do not believe in God, Atheism does not make sense for me neither.
If creation didn't exist, nothing would exist. I call the Divine Creator God, just because I was raised a Catholic.

I guess you could say I like to try to be spiritual rather than religious.

Getting back to Christianity. The Bible was a good book until it was messed about with and altered over the centuries. It is allegories with a deeper meaning, not to be taken literally.

^^^
I often say that I’m religious to mean that I believe that I’m saved and that I do my best to observe what Jesus taught. If dogma and ritual are necessary, defining features of religion, then I cannot say I’m religious in the strictest sense. If that’s the standard, then what I do isn’t even really a religion. Religion as understood by probably most non-Christians is man’s attempt at reuniting himself with God. The Bible teaches that it is impossible for man to reconcile with God on his own, but rather reconciliation happens when God reaches down to man.

All religion and even irreligion has some level of dogma. The existence of God and Jesus for me are NEVER up for question or debate. The validity of my own experience is never up for debate. Everything else demands evidence. I’ve spent a lot of time with Catholics although I identify as Baptist, and I can’t wrap my head around immaculate conception and transubstantiation. There are a number of other things that you are REQUIRED to believe to be Catholic, hence why it’s not the religion for me.

My feelings reflect ToughDiamond’s—especially when it comes to the notion of the idea of “faith.”

He hasn’t experienced Jesus or God in a tangible sense—but he doesn’t dismiss those who have.

Religion is an integral part of many people. Without it, they believe they are nothing.

---

True, 'PLACEBO' WORKS AND Truly
Reflects A 'REAL MAGiC' of Human Belief....

Science Shows That it is the Connection of the
Feeling of 'Faith' In Belief And Hope By Loving Intent of the
Person Providing A so-called 'SUGAR PILL' THAT PROVIDES

Subconscious 'REAL Magic' that in Synergy Brings

Healing to Play Greater

Than With No

'SUGAR PILL AT ALL';

YES, YES, 'Class', it's like

That little Wafer of Bread

That Trump Made Fun of at 'Mass'

Or Other So-Called Religious Services....

No matter if Jesus ever Spoke A Word in that
is Written Down About him in the Bible or Not;

No 'MATTER' how ludicrous it may Sound And Fantastical

That A Priest Has Some Magic Power to Turn A Wafer into

A 2000 Year Old Story of A Dude who is Supposedly God With

Healing Powers, IF YOU BELIEVE WITH ENOUGH FAITH AND HOPE...

AND OF COURSE LOVE;

Oh Lord That

is Precisely

What a Doctor

Does with A Sugar Pill...

Let's Not Get Lost in Semantics

When Science Shows All the Words

We Relate Do Not Equal the Essence They Symbolize...

The FACT IS,

THE SUGAR PILL

OF JESUS HEALS JUST

LIKE THE SUGAR PILLS

DOCTORS PRESCRIBE;

And to Be Clear, Not Everyone
Benefits From So-called Sugar Pills;

And to Be Clear, Not Everyone Equally
Is As Affected And Effected By the Power of Suggestion...

Is that Good or Bad, Not to Be Impacted By the Power of Suggestion;

Yes it is Good AND Bad; Bad For the Folks Who Cannot Use it to Heal themselves;

And Bad For the Folks Who Succumb to the 'Nocebo' Opposite Affect and Effect of

Negative Suggestion too; And Again, Good For Those Who Use the Power of Suggestion

to Heal Themselves

Through Having Great

Belief and Faith And Hope

in the Loving Intent others Bring

in Prayers of Sugar Pills and the Wafer of

Jesus or even Just the Story of Jesus in A Book...

Obviously, Stories Use the Placebo Effect and Nocebo Effect too...

i Tend

to keep myself

iN LiGHT and Only

Allow the DarK to Transform Thru Art
As Muse into LiGHT; This is Emotional
Intelligence/This is Spiritual Intelligence;

The Only Difference is Semantics For those

Who Attempt to Own the Essence With Symbols;

Or Those Who Are Cynical of the LiGHT of the Essence

The Symbols Hold And Never Develop The REAL EMOTIONS
OF FAITH HOPE AND BELIEF THAT HEALS FOR REAL AS SCIENCE LOVING SHOWS...

IT is a bit ironic

And Sad That Folks

Don't Take Full Advantage of

'Soul Hacks' That Work in Life...

Only Because They Believe that

Stories Are not As Real as the "Nose'

on their Face And The Subjective Ability to Smell...

Yeah, It's True, Smell is Subjective too; Lose That Ability

of the Neurons, the Hardware in Your Nose to Smell; And

Everything

As Science

Shows May

End Up Smelling

like a Metaphor of

'Doomsday' for A While;

As A Cold Before Covid-19
Brought That 'Novel Virus Experience'
to my Life after 6 Months with almost no Taste
Or Smell at All; As Science Shows Everything Smelled
And Tasted Horrid at First; It can get so bad that some
folks commit suicide; For Me though, i had already lost
Effective Use of my Eyes and Ears And Emotions through 66
Months of Real Hell on Earth with the Suicide Disease, Type Two
Trigeminal Neuralgia; and a Synergy of 18 other Life Threatening
Disorders From Wake to Sleep like the Suicide Disease that No Drug would touch;

With Extreme Tactile Sensitivity From Birth; i haven't Been Able to Touch Most Human Made
Stuff my Entire Life; Fortunately For me, i had the Rest of my Senses in Synergy to Master Emotions

Even With the Loss of my Taste And Smell and The Return of A 'Doomsday' Taste and Smell for Existence...

It's a Matter

of Perspective

As Human Beings Do
Basically Hallucinate their
Lives as Neuroscience Shows
Based on their Experiences of Life Before...

Now my Taste and Smell is Better than Ever before...

As i Paid More Loving Intention to it and Created A Greater
Smell and Taste of Life; We Create Our Realities as We Go;

Only True Fools

Believe this

Reality

is Objective,

Concrete, And Set in Stone;

By the Day You Die; You May
Find Life is Much More Different
Than You Imagined it to be before;

In Fact, As Human Beings Everynow

We 'Die' And Create A New Reality

in A Thousand Cuts of Hell

Or A Thousand Brushes

of Feathers

in

Paradise...

Choose Your Elixir
or Poison Wisely;

Yet of Course,

It's A Lot Easier

if you have 100 Percent Belief
Faith, Hope, And Love Now You

Can And Will; It's the only way

All my Pain and Numb Went into

Miraculous Recovery Still on File with
The Doctor's Amazed at my Recovery

So Fast When i Found the Autotelic Ways
of Meditation in Flow and the 100 Percent
Belief, Faith, Hope, And Love to Heal Myself by

my own
Power

of Suggestion;

for You 'See' or Do Not See...

Like Every other Potential Intelligence

in Existence, Use it or Lose it Applies..

Oh Woe, to Those With Little Belief, Hope, Faith, and Love...

The Nice Part is This Existence is Open Source; No One Owns

The Essence;

It is the

Fire Within;

The 'Real Saint Elmo's
Fire' We Either Create or Do Not...

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark And Don't Be Cynical oF LiGHT

Or Do
And

Lose more than Win...

i have no Problem With Religion;

With God; With Jesus; Except for the

Ignorant Nocebo Affects and Effects Per
The Voodoo of the Stories Past and Present
Still Generating That Harm, Rape, Maim, And Still Kill;

When Despicable Leaders tell People in Advance they are
Gonna Shoot Folks on 5th Avenue in Broad Daylight; Or Send
People to Hell and Torture Them Forever, 'Right' After they insist

They Are All Loving, All Forgiving, All Merciful; For Enemy, FRiEnD, Self,

And 'God' of Nature Same...

Nature

Gets

The Final

Breath at Death;

Humans Create All
Flavors of Hell, Purgatory,
And Heaven on Earth Within,
Inside, Outside, Above, So Below
And All Around; We Have amazing

Potentials to Bring Dreams and Nightmares and the
Gray Scale 'Tween to Fruition; Do Not Dismiss The DarK or LiGHT

Forces of Belief, Faith, Hope, And Love at Our PeRiL or GREaTesT ENDless

Forevernow DeLiGHT; THere is DarK And LiGHT And The Tween of That

in Christianity, Religions, in General Culture, Politics, Philosophy, And Everything About

Existence All that is...

Master the DarK and LiGHT iN 'YouR' LiFE and For All Practical
Intents And Purposes Master the All in All of Your Existence Now...

(Specifically, by Regulating
Emotions and Integrating
Senses Through an Autotelic
Flow Now of Meditating All the
Dance And Song of Life We Do
MaKinG All of Existence We Create
As Fruition Holy And Sacred Divine

For Real DarK

Thru LiGHT)

Meh...

Works for me...

(As Always All the
Empirical Evidence
That Proves this works for
me, Available in Copious Amounts At Hand
On As Small As A 6-Inch Screen, WHerever i 'Never' 'Land' Next
i Am; Sure Am Glad i Don't Have to 'Forrest Gump' Tote Some

'Big Brief

Case' to

All the

Bus Stops of Life...
Hitchhiking 'A UNiVeRSE
Meaning of Life' NoW in Ease FOR REAL...)

---

No, Htchens' Razor is just a way of saying that if somebody makes an extraordinary assertion dogmatically without providing a scrap of evidence, as if that was OK, then it's just as OK for somebody else to refute it without providing a scrap of evidence. Not a great way of convincing a rational, inquiring mind of anything of course, but given the power of propaganda (which is often composed of unsubstantiated assertions) at least a gullible audience then gets a chance to see both sides of the coin. Normally I don't like to assert anything that may be hard to believe without also showing my reasoning in a way that makes sense, and revealing the sources of my information, but if somebody else does so first, they can hardly complain if I refute their unsubstantiated claim in the same dogmatic way.

You're correct that some people won't respond to evidence and will cling to a belief in spite of it, but what has that to do with Hitchens' Razor?

Well, supernatural events do happen and are responsible for your existence.

No, they don't and they aren't.*

There is no such thing as knowledge that isn’t revealed by God.

Yes there is.*

Because God does reveal things to people, Christians have no reason to doubt their faith having experienced God for themselves.

They haven't experienced God, so they have every reason to doubt their faith.*

It’s kinda like telling an evolutionary biologist that evolution just does not happen when the biologist has personally witnessed speciation among, say, fruit fly or bird populations over a relatively tiny number of generations. It would be an exercise in insanity trying to believe what he witnessed didn’t actually happen.

Except that your hypothetical evolutionary biologist has seen real events, and evolution makes logical sense. I seriously doubt that most religious people would even claim to have seen anything tangible such as a visitation in the flesh. Many religious people were simply brought up to it by being repeatedly told that this or that supernatural "reality" was correct, pretty much in the absence of ideas that contradicted the party line, until their formative years were over. They didn't discover it for themselves, they were spoon-fed it.

Hinging faith on the “safety” of a low probability just isn’t going to cut it when a person happens to be 100% certain that the Bible is correct.

It's hard to know what you mean - obviously somebody who refuses to entertain any doubt about the veracity of a statement isn't going to agree with one who points out any possibility at all that it might not be quite correct. As far as I can see, going by the balance of probabilities requires no faith, though it depends on your definition of faith. There appears to be two kinds - the kind concerned purely with behaviour, such as calling "heads" when tossing a coin, in which case you're backing a result you (I hope) know to be uncertain, and you might invest a big stake in getting it right, but your brain knows it's not a certainty; the other type is concerned with the mind, so in the coin example you'd believe the result was certain to go your way. Few would be so silly, but wishful thinking sometimes gets into people's heads. There's the story of Thomas, who entertained doubts and wanted proof, which (the story goes) he was given in the form of being allowed to examine the nail holes in Jesus' hands. Interestingly enough, the implication seems to be that you don't go to hell for refusing to believe without that kind of hard evidence. And it's exactly that kind of tangible, physical evidence that I'm saying isn't presented to most believers (see fruit fly argument above). According to Romans I, Thomas had no excuse to be so skeptical.

I’m also 100% certain that Cloudfront sucks.

I'd certainly agree that Cloudfront has features that make using WP difficult to use, and it can be infuriating. On a bad day I could get so annoyed with it that I might say it sucked, because in the grip of strong emotions reason frequently takes wings. It's a curiosity of language that people who aren't in a particularly emotional state also make dogmatic statements sometimes, but they often expect the listener to take it as shorthand for something more nuanced and objective. It certainly uses fewer words.

* Those comments are by courtesy of Hitchens' Razor. See my previous post for an explanation of why I used it.