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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@ Tin Man
Ha! I too have a magnificent under nasal decoration. I never attended Catholic School but a Buggery Academy (Fee Paying School) in the UK which gave me a magnificent dislike of the English Caste system and their cooking...I Plan to take over the world wrapped in my cloak of evil (Target $4.99) and backed up by my terrifying army of puppies and kittens...all hail the litter box!
Hi Pirate Jack. I was wondering if it would be ok to post your above comment within my original post. Quite a few people are still viewing it every day and I think what you say here sums up what I was trying to say perfectly. Thanks.
Exactly, Pirate Jack. Foolish and ridiculous, as you say, but don't forget narcissistic. I have to admit, you summed it up better in two sentences than I did in my entire post. Thank you!
@Jimmy Neutron: You are just confused. Prayer always works when you know how to do it. God has a plan. The real problem here is that you are blind to the miracles of Jesus. You need Jesus in your heart. (John 3:16) God so loved the world that he gave his only begotton son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God is waiting for you to accept him so that he can cradle you in his love. He is waiting to answer your prayer.
@Cognostic: "You need Jesus in your heart."
I don't want no friggin' Jesus to clog the main veins and arteries in my heart. And how can my heart pump my blood if there is an actual Jesus inside my heart that restricts my heart's beating? I think I prefer Jesus as a dead guy on a stick rather than a heart parasite that endangers my life.
Re: Cog - "Prayer always works when you know how to do it. God has a plan."
I would like to elaborate a bit more on what Cog has mentioned here, for his words are truly wise. Yes, God has a plan. It is a perfect plan, because God is a perfect being. And because God's perfect plan is so perfectly perfect, He will never change that perfect plan for any reason. Therefore, when you pray to God for Him to help you with something as you try to live your life in accordance to His perfect plan (even though you have NO IDEA what His perfect plan is), there is something very important you need to know. Always remember (and I cannot stress this enough), if you want God to give you what you want/need when you pray, then it is absolutely vital you ask ONLY for those things that are already a part of His perfect plan. Otherwise, you will be shit-out-of-luck, because God obviously cannot and will not alter His perfect plan just to accommodate some selfish little self-centered narcissist who thinks God is here strictly to make his/her individual life all rainbows and sunshine. It's all about The Big Picture, people. BIG PICTURE!
@ AMEN Mr. Tin!!!
@Tin Man
Wait- if he's all powerful, doesn't He make up all the rules? What rule is there that He can't change his plan?
Oh, wait- completely disregard everything I just said; I have just realized the obvious answer: Heworksinmysteriousways. How could I have been so silly as to not remember at first? Here, I'll just bang my head against this brick wall until I stop asking silly questions like the one I just asked. *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* BANG*
(Edited to fix punctuation and spelling.)
@Rohan M.: READ YOUR BIBLE
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
James 1:17
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
John 6:27
"Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal."
Tin-man is 100% correct and God always answers prayers as long as you know what to pray for. When you don't get what you want the problem is yours not Gods. A good parent says "no" sometimes. Boundaries are important.
Who is the Jerk that gave me a disagree. I stand by my claim. In fact I can state it stronger: "PRAYER ALWAYS WORKS, 100% OF THE TIME, WHEN YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT!" I prayed my capital letters button would work before I typed this post and LOOK! It's a frigging MIRACLE, and one more ANSWERED PRAYER among many!
@Cog Re: "Who is the Jerk that gave me a disagree."
Obviously it was some faithless dipshit who knows nothing of the true power of prayer and how God uses it to work wondrous miracles in our lives. Haters be haters.... *shrugging shoulders*...
@Cog Re: "I prayed my capital letters button would work before I typed this post and LOOK! It's a frigging MIRACLE..."
Maybe not as much a miracle as you think. Obviously your CAPS lock working was already part of God's perfect plan. I think you just got lucky and guessed right.
@ Cog
I am on to you , you poo flinging primate...you gave YOURSELF that 'disagree' so you could pray and then claim it was all a miracle! Typical Theist behaviour.
I bet you will lie about it all now and tell me it was a 'disagree' that you prayed for and THAT was the miracle that made you pray for a miracle.....where was I? Oh, yes...and it is a typical risible, mendacious ploy that we see a million times a day here on these forums.
And STOP FLINGING POO!
@Old man shouts ... RE: "And STOP FLINGING POO!" It's amazing how ignorant you non-believers can be. The word atheist is often associated with "intellectual," but it is exactly the opposite.
In the Atheist world view, 6000 years ago, there was a big bang in space. Sweet brown bubbly stuff oozed up from the ground. Then over millions of years, a crusty side crept up around it and formed an aluminum can with the words Coka Cola printed on it. All you non-believers are doing is insulting my intellect. Everything created need a creator. This creator has a plan and every plan has a design. If his design is for you to pray then you will pray and your prayers will always be answered one way or another as a part of his design.
Now, as for flinging POO. God created primates to fling POO. With your eyes closed you will never see the glory of God's creation.
Behold the Atheist's nightmare! THE POO! Now if you study a well made poo, you will find it round and blunted on one end and just a little pointy on the other. The rounded blunt end is always first through the anus so that your hand is not pierced by the sharp pointy end. And this amazing shape facilitates the POO's flight through the air like a torpedo through water.
In fact, the shape of the POO is perfectly designed to fit gracefully in the small circle the primate hand creates by touching the first finger and thumb together. The POO is firm but slick on the outside to facilitate easy release but not so slick that it can not be gripped with relative ease. The poo and the primate hand are perfectly made one for the other.
The all mighty creator of primates and poo provided divine indicators to inform us of well formed POO; too soft and the POO can not be tossed very far as it drips through the fingers, too hard and it bounces off the target without having the desired affect. The well made POO is delivered to us by our creator with just the right consistency to spread out and splat on impact, like a bug on the windshield of a moving car.
Finally, the POO that is flung is chewy, easy to digest, and just the right shape to fit in the primate mouth. Seriously, the whole of creation testifies to the genius of god's creation and all you need do is open your eyes in awe. Primates were created to fling POO. That is what we do, Mr. Trike Rider!
WOW! 5 agrees! I have not been this happy since Chimp 3 shoved that banana up my butt. Umm.... Err.... It wasn't the butt part. It was simply laughing at how silly it looked. So we drew a little banana face with a mustache and then dressed it up with a poncho, and sombrero before dancing about singing the Chiquita Banana theme song. It was really funny.......... okay........ perhaps you just had to be there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl5DCDfRZiw The actual video is x-rated. But you can see it is the popular thing to do.
The Dinner party the night before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXVHITd1N4
Bonus Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubmiT8JKeRU
How you get the banana out of your butt
https://video.genyt.net/GSbUHao49YM
I agree, but sometimes I have prayed in desperation all the same. I have bipolar disorder and often my brain doesn't work so good. At these times, I don't expect prayer to work, but I have prayed all the same in case prayer somehow changes the one praying.
Thanks for posting that, Jimmy. Also, I think that the Christian God is the root of all evil. Want me to prove it in biblical standards?
God created angels. The Devil was an angel named Lucifer. Since God is omniscient and omnipotent, he happened to create an evil psuedo intellectual ruler of his kingdom that would eventually rebel against him and turn into an equal superpower to him. God knew that with Lucifer now turned-Satan's free will, he would sin the Earth for generations to come. What an awesome God as he reigns, am I right?
The Christian devil is based on the god Pan. The idea of an eternal hell is a christian invention. It does not exist in Judaism nor in the New Testament . Kind of eliminates the need for a devil I'd say
Source: John Shelby Sprong. Lots of stuff on youtube and he's written some best selling books.
You raised an interesting question about god foreknowing everything; kind of takes the shine off the notion of free will.
Jesus is said to be fully man and fully god . If he is fully man, he must be capable of sin. If he is fully god, he is perfect, incapable of sin. They can't have it both ways. Well, of course they try that, constantly. It's a school of thought called ''theology'.
Thought for the day "Theology; The effort to explain the unknowable in terms not worth knowing" ( H L Mencken)
Hell wasn't invented by Christianity; they just copied it from the Greek and Norse pagan religions.
Yes and no.
Christianity has pinched ideas from the very beginning. One idea it pinched in the first century, was the Greek notion of hades . Later thefts include the god pan as the devil., They even had the gall to pinch the halo ,and December 25th (winterSolstice) from Deus Sol Invicta. (the Roman sun god)
Over centuries Christianity seems to have stolen ideas from all over, emerging with its own idea of an eternal hell This was done to gain power and control over believers .,Worked too, and still works . .
I think it's probably impossible to work out all the sources, even of Christianity itself. There are many correlations between world myths and moral codes for example .However, those correlations don't necessarily mean a causal connection. So. I guess the Christians could have lifted hell from anywhere. I'm not certain by when the Christian hell was finalised . I've always thought within the first 2-300 years, butI can't prove that
Perhaps you could give me a rough time frame about when Christianity would most likely have come into contact with Norse Mythology? I would have thought not much before seventh century at the very earliest.
@cranky47 Yes, they did mainly copy the concept of eternal damnation from the Hades of Hellenism (Greek paganism) at first, but what I meant when I mentioned Norse paganism was that methinks the etymology of the modern name for it ("Hell") came from something similar in Norse mythology called "Helheim"- and yes, as you said, this religion first came into contact with Christianity at around the seventh century CE.
Well, NaturalWorldGuy, as many people have told me over the years, the supernatural ability of a theist to disregard logic makes rational points irrelevant to their world view. Or, in the case of your post, a theist could easily miss your sarcasm and see that as a perfectly logical linear narrative. Go figure.
@Matt Fulkerson: Well Then..... You pray for us and we will THINK for you.
He answers prayers in such a way that doesn't interfere with humanities freedom of will or something. He couldn't just flick Hitlers head off if someone prayed for it. You pray to be given the resolve to fight against Hitler yourself and the Holy power then goes into you and that motivates you to fight and what have you. At least that's the standard response you're going to get it's not really worth trying to argue this one. They already kind of know it doesn't work the way you're saying it doesn't work.
@Dark One Yes, good! Why couldn't the god who once caused global floods, magically impregnated teenage girls, and made burning bushes speak to people before going silent for 2 millennia just come out of retirement and flick off Hitler's head and thus save millions of innocent lives? Because he works in MYSTERIOUS WAYS! So stop thinking about it, as you will never be able to understand it with your small human brain! Trust in him without a shred of critical thin- er, I mean, doubt.
Religious belief has nothing to do with intelligence or reason. It is based on faith ,and is a-logical.
Martin Luther went to far as to write:
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
― Martin Luther
I can think of two reasons god does not answer prayers:
(1) He can't , because he doesn't exist.
(2 ) He ALWAYS answers every prayer, no matter how trivial. The answer is always 'no'
The OP raised the question of evil and suffering, as well he might. It is a question Christianity has never been able to answer, although it often claims it has.
The pithiest response to god and the existence of evil I've found comes from Epicurus :
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus
First of all, welcome aboard, cranky47! I've been reading several of your responses and posts the last few days and I already appreciate and respect your take on things. This response you've posted above is especially spot-on and extremely well said. Thank you.
It’s easy to claim prayer works when you point to something that has a chance to turn out the way you prefer. Try praying for something that is 100% impossible. Example.... all cancer cured, no starving people as of tomorrow, all people treated with equality, etc.... People have always linked positive prayer outcomes to something that was an at chance situation. Bunch of dumbasses.
Prayer works?
An interesting example is Lourdes, where Catholics believe the virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous (now St Bernadette) at Lourdes, in 1858.
Since that time, there have been in excess of 200 MILLION pilgrims who have gone to Lourdes for a miraculous cure. To date the Catholic church has recognised a total of 65 cures as miraculous. Not ONE case of the regrowth of an amputated limb, nor of curing blindness with an organic cause.EG no cornea, that kind of thing.
In interesting contrast;, the rate of the spontaneous remission of disease is 1:30,000. Do the maths.
Old joke; When I was 12, I prayed to god for a bike. After a couple of weeks, no new bike, So I stole one and prayed for forgiveness.
Below a clip of Janis Joplin "Mercedes Benz". I haven't worked out how to imbed a video yet , or even if it's possible here. Would appreciate it if a kind soul would point me in the right direction. Perhaps if I prayed for inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E2_zay3B6Q
@cranky47
Yeh the video imbedding does not work. Best to just post url, like you did.
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