Why God Doesn't Exist - A Response - Comments

Double post because my phone has a character limit. I was raised Christian but I'm Agnostic now. Why? Because I haven't found the religion that I fit into. But I still believe in a God if only because I was raised that way. It also comforts me. And I have been through some rough shit in my life, so I know all about that comfort being needed. Don't bash God because of this world. Bash humanity that even without religion guided morals turned the world into this. It would be like this as long as we have the right to choose.

The rules you're talking about are in the Old Testament and are taken literally by one sect of the Jewish religion and some extreme Christians. It's become a widely accepted belief that we look back at the Old Testament but don't take its rules into accordance beyond the quite basic Ten Commandments. Which actually make a fair bit of sense. Also, look at Greek mythology which was once seen as religion. We have spiders because a girl insulted a goddess. We have a certain flower because the wind was jealous of Apollo's lover. Also, look at it this way. God said we have free will. We choose what we do. You can either take your free will and be happy with it or we can surrender our free will and let a deity control us all. God isn't killing people. People are making the choice to kill people. And yeah, maybe it sucks to you. But I'm quite happy with my free will and I don't want to give it up. Plus, like Dru said, we are incredibly tiny parts of a large universe. Also consider the deist belief.

@ Violetta3Tears
I'm actually not taking everything in the Bible literally, like, not the stories and myths and stuff, but when there's a long list of things it says you're supposed and not supposed to do (i.e., the wife must be silent and sodomy,) that's what people took seriously and why it shouldn't be listened to. The Bible is sort of a moral code to me, to sort of adjust a moral compass that may be upturned, but I do NOT think it should be followed as a religion.

I am not trying to sound negative or everything but you're not supposed to everything in the Bible literally, some of it is symbolic.

I am not trying to sound negative or everything but you're not supposed to everything in the Bible literally, some of it is symbolic.

@ vulcan;
I typed a longer comment before I posted that one, with arguments against you, but then I realised I couldn't be bothered. I don't know if you read what I said properly, but I am not religious. Nor have I ever been. I don't believe in God. I just got stuck in a Catholic school for sixteen years. I wasn't insulting you, merely saying that you should really learn about this stuff before you start bashing it.

Here's a tip. I find that the most convincing argument against religion is to just speak about religion. Anthropomorphising god weakens everything people argue for his existence.

@ vulcan;
Earth being the center of the universe was scientifically disproven in the Middle Ages, was it not?

Yes, some Christians are dumb and assholes and cruel and evil and do not act in accordance with the Bible itself. But they are not all Christians.

Regardless, neither of those things has to do with God existing. If we're arguing about assholes in religion, the existence of God is immaterial. Whether or not He exists, those people continue to exist.

In the Bible it also says that Job lived with dinosaurs. Like I said, the Bible is not meant to be taken literally. Every religion has their God/creation myths.

@ dru brings sexy back
you just
ugh
im a bit confused because i agree with the ending, but according to a shit ton of christians (at least some in my area) the earth is the center of the universe, and the universe only exists because humans exist. according to the christians in my area, if humans were to cease, then the universe would cease.

and in the bible it says that there wouldn't be death if not for adam and eve eating from the tree of knowledge.

Everything in the Bible is NOT supposed to be a direct quote from God. Don't know where the hell you got that idea. The Bible was written by man. It's all quotes from man. Very few people are stupid enough to think God actually wrote the Bible.

The Bible is supposed to be inspired by God, not written by him.

I don't believe the Bible is meant to be taken literally. It's like a book of myths you learn lessons from. I believe all religions are the same, just a game of telephone of the human race that has been spun wildly out of control.

Earth is hell. It's Satan's dominion. That's why everything bad happens here, because we are in the kingdom of hell.

If we didn't die, we couldn't live. The planet would have overcrowded. Where would people go? Would a loving god let that happen?

Looking at the small picture of individual lives and our own petty selfishness, these tiny insignificant things like one person killing themselves must seem like a big deal. But look at the big picture of the entire universe and it isn't that important in the scheme of things.

@ Looking at Stars
Thank you for insulting me. I hope you get banned.

When did I blame everything that's wrong in the world on religion? I simply stated that, if there was a God, and if he lived up to the standards that everyone thought, then there wouldn't be so much pain and suffering. I never said, "Oh religion caused this and this and this is because of religion," so please don't assume so.

You didn't even argue against me, you just proposed a guilt-trip. Your argument didn't even back up your side a little bit, or change my "ignorance." You basically said, "You are wrong and God exists because, well, why would you destroy and old lady's only hope in life?" That isn't even a little bit of proof for God, or proof that my opinion/argument is wrong.

I've read a little bit of the bible, admittedly not enough. You see, I have Autism, which makes me susceptible to be easily angered. The Bible--I read Genesis--made me so fucking angry due to the stupidity and sexism and contradictions, I had to stop reading. But I analyzed it, marked the sexism and contradictions, and even commented on the things I thought were pretty cool.

I am not religious at all, but you are just ignorant. I'll try and make this as simple as possible. Clearly you don't understand much.

You cannot blame everything that's wrong with the world on religion. You can, however, blame it on people. Because where does religion come from? The collective minds of a large group of people. Bashing an entire group of people is not going to change anything. Why shit on someone's belief when it gets them up in the morning, y'know? Why tell an old lady with no family that going to church every Sunday is wrong, if it's the only thing that gives her company? For some people religion is a comfort. Also, humans are fundamentally inquisitive creatures. We want to know everything. Is it any wonder why there are so many religions offering so many different answers?

You're really narrow-minded and I doubt you've even read the bible. You've probably googled some quotes and learned some more quotes in school, and probably read a few paragraphs. I've studied entire gospels at length so I think I have good understanding. I was at a Catholic school for longer than you've been alive. Your arguments are weak and generic and unoriginal. They seem like something you read, and they seem more aggressive and childish than they do intelligent and creatively thought-provoking.

I'm not religious, but I have to agree with the others, your argument could've been stated in a much less offensive way. I really only have a few things to say about the Bible and religion in general (and I'm by no means an expert on either, so I'm just going to leave it at that). And aside from that, I don't think that having an all-knowing, merciful deity means that there's automatically no pain or suffering in the world, but that's more a matter of personal belief than anything else.

An English teacher I had a few years ago talked about the stories from the Bible in an allegorical/metaphorical way. I'm not sure it applies to the entire Bible, but he used the example of Adam and Eve being thrown out of Eden, saying it could be seen as a metaphor for the change from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture. I get that it'd be very easy to write this point of view off, but the Bible is a big starting point for a lot of writers. My (overtly atheist) lit teacher asked that we all know our Bible stories just because there are so many Biblical references in literature. (Not quite directly related to your blog, but even for atheists, the Bible isn't a complete write-off.)

And while there are some Christians who do take the Bible a little too seriously, I think it's incredibly unfair to lump them all together, as many have no qualms with science or equal rights (between men and women, between races/ethnicities, between those with other sexualities). I don't think you mentioned anything other than gender inequalities, but the Bible does reflect its era and many Christians will admit this. I haven't met a Christian who hasn't, actually. I once had a priest who said that to believe in everything in the Bible, you'd have to believe in pixies and fairies. Most just take the morals and messages from the stories and go from there.

I've had a big long battle with religion and God, trying to figure out whether or not it's real or all just a hunk of bologna. (Long story short, I've decided that I'll never know and not to take on any label about it, whether it be Christian or atheist, because religion doesn't really have any bearing on how I live my life, and hasn't for years.) But I'm against attacking religion, because there are actually people who need to know there's a god out there (and yes, these people do know he's there, because sometimes just the belief in him is enough) and that he's watching out for them. And you can poke holes in the Bible and make fun of religious people all you want, but some people actually need the hand of God to get through the day, and for that reason I absolutely hate this atheist-attack-on-religion I see all over the internet. I'm not having a go at you here, it's just that I know a lot of Christians, and quite a few of them really do follow the Bible and try their best to be good people - and, more than that, actually pray and go to church because they believe it will help them in one way or another, and who the hell am I to say that it won't?

I'm actually sorry this got so long, because I only meant for it to be a quick little comment, but there it is.
tl;dr If you take nothing else away from this, let it be that the whole blog didn't necessarily need to have such argumentative, ironically holier-than-thou tones, and that a lot of Christians don't need to come under attack simply because they are Christians.

I agree. I'm not entirely atheist, but I'm quite close. I have very many doubts that are similar to yours, and I don't see how it's possible for this god we all talk about to be real.

I'm Christian and although I respect your opinion- I do think you could have worded it a bit more nicely. Some sentences like 'THEN YOUR OPINION IS WRONG', 'WHICH RENDERS YOUR ENTIRE ARGUMENT FOR GOD USELESS' and 'Because he's not fucking real' are really aggressive. Respect works both ways.

@ caves of steel.
I wasn't too sure of myself with that; I only got that from a documentary on netflix called (I think) How the Earth Was Made or How the Universe Works or something like that.

But yes, thank you for the input

@ vulcan;
The Urey/Miller experiment proved that amino acids and basic organic compounds could have formed on their own in the conditions of early earth. It's actually pretty cool. There is evidence that the moon crashed into earth before falling into its orbit. So while it's entirely possible, Athena, as well as life-bringing comets are hardly needed (although they may have brought water to earth) for the formation of life.

To be honest, I've never met a Christian who believes that the world is 6,000 years old. On a personal note, a science book of mine in middle school made a jab at Christians who believed in this, and it confused me because I never had believed such a thing. I'm a Catholic-Christian (or as you would define me a sect/hypocrite of Christianity since I recognize the bible is a product of its time), and I was never told that the Earth is the center of the universe. And like, I love science and I believe in evolution.

Sunday sermons for my 21 years of life have never instilled sexist claims that women are beneath men, so sometimes I feel that many Christians do not acknowledge and service the sexist thoughts from the bible. The most controversial it's ever gotten in my church masses is the discussion of abortion and stem-cell research, but those were of course, done by a much older priest, who was on his soap box.

Many documentaries I've watched on the Christian religion, the priests and philosophers have identified the contradictions of the Bible. It's rather interesting. I think religion is like any thought process, and its interpretations evolve with the social standards of the time.

@ Usako
Thanks

January Rose:

Thanks for explain your theory on how the earth was created but it still doesn't explain how humans were created. And if they were created from amino acids, why does every person look the different (different skin colors, facial features, body types) except for identical twins/triplets.....?

Amino acids are arranged in different forms and combinations to create DNA strands. In biological organisms, much of the DNA is the same; however, the small percentage that is different differentiates who we are.

@ vulcan;
Sorry if I sounded arrogant but I was just stating my opinion.

Thanks for explain your theory on how the earth was created but it still doesn't explain how humans were created. And if they were created from amino acids, why does every person look the different (different skin colors, facial features, body types) except for identical twins/triplets.....?