Dear atheist friends, here I am venting about things that I hear in sermons and make me think "bullshit!".
Sunday, I was with my wife attending a service in this evangelical church. The preacher was talking about the 1st commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me". He explained that this verse is not only meant for people in "false religions such as Buddhism", but also for Christians in general.
His point was, anything that you put before God, is also an act of worship. Let's say you invest a significant amount of time in your career, then you are worshipping your job. Are you worried about money? You are worshipping money.
How to solve that, according to him? Hand your "false gods" to God. Are you thinking too much about money? Hand it to God or to people in need (to his credit he mentioned people in need. That was a first. In other churches I saw this ending in a queue for giving everything you had in your pockets to the church).
I wonder how they measure whether something is taking God's place if you think of normal daily activities can become an act of worship? How do you know if your work, leisure, social life, etc., are making God angry. It must be a hell of way to live thinking about it all the time.
To be honest, during my time as a Christian, I lived like that. I was constantly worried if I was playing too many games or spending too much time studying instead of spending "a good quality time with the Lord". I felt guilty for reading a secular book or taking online trainings for 2 hours long, but couldn't manage to pray for half an hour. My life was always surrounded by guilt for not doing what I thought God expected me to do and whenever some external circumstance occurred (a family member died without Jesus, someone suffered an accident or got seriously sick) I wondered if that was due to me not praying enough.
Anyway. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
(Why the hell you go to church? Because of my wife that is a Christian).
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@Oten
As an Atheist I live free of the guilt of sin and the fear of Hell.
Sin is a human construct, used to control people.
How often do you go to church with your wife?
@xenoview, at least 2 Sundays a month.
I've gone to a few church services with my gf. She is slowly losing her religion.
Those who preach religion know that guilt and fear have great power. If you break down what preachers say, they use guilt, fear, ego, or selfishness. They pretend that common sense prevails, but they are full of BS with their twisted logic.
@ Oten Oaoj
In a way, you are correct. While alive, I DID worship me wife and daughters. Since their deaths 20 years ago, I worship their memories. However, "worship" is actually a very incorrect word. If anything, I held them in great esteem and high regard.
And no. Not everyone "worships something." I worship nothing. NOTHING. Otherwise, prove it.
rmfr
Worship to me isn’t about having something greater than yourself in your life ( such as the greater good of humanity) it’s about submission. I can say that I want what’s best for humanity overall, but I’d never claim that I worship it. That would mean I’m submitting myself, lowering myself, before it. However, I am firstly concerned about myself and cannot put others before myself. Maybe I worship my family in some twisted sense, but I don’t really like to think of it that way. I put my family before myself, but it’s still an exchange of equals, I lower myself but there’s a choice involved. In worship there is no choice, it is a forced submission. One can choose not to submit, but you get a lake of hellfire for eternity if you don’t.
RE: Everyone worships something. Congratulations. Your post was almost in the running for IDIOT of the year. Then I clicked on your profile and discovered you are an atheist so I know the title was in jest. Sorry but you no longer qualify and now I must go back and read the entire post because it is probably funny as hell given your sense of humor in selecting a title.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ..... Yep..... Funny as hell! Put money first and you are worshiping the heathen coin. Show me your dislike of money. Prove to me you do not care about money. Prove to god you do not put money before him and dig deep into your pockets when the collection plate comes around. Rid yourself of the heathen burden of money, Let nothing stand between you and your god, especially not money. WHAT A CROCK OF MANIPULATION BULL-SHIT!!!!
Are you spending too much time online reading secular lies? SINNER! Are you spending too much time having fun and not enough time with the Loard! YOU ARE THE LUKE WARM CHRISTIAN GOD SPEAKS OF IN " Revelation 3:16 " YOU ARE THE ONE THAT WILL BE SPIT FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT FILTH IN THEY EYES OF THE LORD, and here comes the collection plate, ATONE FOR YOUR SINS NOW YOU FILTHY UNWORTHY BASTARD. GIVE TO THE LORD, PROVE YOU ARE WORTHY. BEG FOR FORGIVENESS UNTIL IT HURTS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FINANCIALLY. Your kids don't need milk this week. You wanted to stop smoking anyway. Walk to work to prove you love god instead of putting gas in the car. Everything you do is for the glory of GOD. And if you don't do it you will BURN IN HELL FOR YOUR LACK OF COMMITMENT. PUT THAT LAST DOLLAR IN THE COLLECTION PLATE. PLANT A SEED OF FAITH AND WATCH IT GROW. or face ETERNAL DAMNATION. THE CHOICE IS YOURS.
There is no problem at all with going to Church. Hopefully you can learn first hand the bullshit ways these assholes use to suck money out of their congregations. My last girlfriend was religious as well. Whenever we went to church I treated it like a trip to Disneyland. "We are going to go and visit the magic people." Once or twice during a sermon I would usually turn to her and ask if the magic people were here because I didn't see them. Of course I got shushed. But afterwords I would tell her how I thought I saw them floating about and doing different things. She knew it was total bullshit but could not keep from laughing. (I'm a funny guy...)
Well, I guess you have my thoughts. Obviously I am prejudice. That's because I am an ATHEIST, and if god wanted money to run his Church he could just MAKE THE SHIT UP LIKE HE DOES EVERYTHING ELSE.
@Cognostic,
Wow, that's was a hell of a venting. Yes, I recognize that unintentionally my title is a click-bait. My apologizes. I didn't mean to irritate people. I was irritated and I also wanted to vent. This "everybody worships something" is a bullshit. It's one of those false equivalences that preachers love to do. My favorite so far is Tim Keller's where he equates "belief" with "faith".
First of all,
That last paragraph tells me is that you are a person that knows that their time is better spent doing more productive things and honestly, that's awesome. It's awesome that you were not consumed by this religious "guilt" and that you were able to think for yourself without apology.
As for "His point was, anything that you put before God, is also an act of worship"
This is just a strawman argument. It does nothing but trivialize the sentiment that all people must submit to a higher power. I think in a secular context, it's true to the extent of addictions. Some people worship income, some worship the bottle, some worship lust, but they don't pray to it lol.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sz_XvizX58
I had to go watch a video. Not familiar with him. What I do know is that faith is a subcategory of belief. It is "Belief without knowledge" or "Unjustified belief." Sorry, I have no patients to sit through this guys monotone bland presentation. Boring as hell. I would rather listen to Ray Comfort. They are equally moronic but at least ray is entertaining.
Brace yourselves, gents. Here's a short from Keller's book "Reason for God" where he commits false equivalency.
"But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith, skeptics much learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their own reasoning. All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternative beliefs. You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B…
The reason you doubt Christianity’s Belief A is because you hold unprovable Belief B. Every doubt, therefore, is based on a leap of faith. (p. xviii)"
Arguing semantics
RE: "But even as believers should learn to look for reasons behind their faith," Putting the Cart before the horse. There should be reasons that lead to belief. Faith is belief in the absence of good reasons. There is nothing that can not be believed based on faith.
RE: "skeptics much learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their own reasoning." Given the (above mentioned) definition of faith, this sentence is utter nonsense. Skeptics do not use faith at all, else they would not be skeptics.
RE: "All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternative beliefs." HUH? You say there is a god and I say I doubt what you are saying can you please prove it. Please demonstrate a belief? I have made no assumption at all and I am only waiting for the facts and evidence you can provide so I can believe too. This is a classic "Straw Man." If I also have a belief, my belief can be attacked. This is an attempt to shift the burden of proof, "Prove my God is not real." It's a dishonest ploy at gaining the upper hand in a conversation. It's bullshit. If you think you have evidence for your claims, show it.
RE: "You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B… " Demonstrably wrong and I just proved it. All belief can be doubted with no faith what so ever. Reason and logic can lead us to doubt any belief. "Ah Ha! says the apologist, you have belief in reason and logic/ Of course, but we have no faith in reason or logic.! Like all beliefs, the facts dictate the level of belief to be given to a specific proposition. The Laws of Logic ( The Law of Identity, The law of non contradiction, Excluded Middle, ) and are demonstrable. They work. They have taken men to the moon and to the depths of the seas. They have cured diseases. They require no faith what so ever. They are unconditional pragmatic and demonstrable beliefs. NOT FAITH
RE: You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B…
Here he is pulling an equivocation switch with "belief" and "faith". He uses the word belief as if it means faith and faith as if it is equivalent to belief. As if they are the same thing. Belief is based on facts and observation. Faith is based on .... nothing at all. He asserts that Atheist Belief is equal to the religious faith and that the religious faith is actually belief. He is in fact just playing word games.
RE: "The reason you doubt Christianity’s Belief A is because you hold unprofitable Belief" NOT TRUE, As previously stated, We are simply waiting for the facts and evidence of the Christian claim so that we can believe to. Absent any reliable evidence there is no reason to believe.
Basic bullshit apologetics 101. Not even very interesting.
Arguing over faith and belief is asinine. Remember the biblical Exodus story. The people supposedly witnessed all kinds of impressive miracles so they should have had very strong beliefs, they didn't need faith because they saw evidence with their own eyes. But was that good enough? No, all they did was bitch about this and that and they started to worship another deity because they didn't have any faith or belief in their old one who had supposedly did the very miracles that they had experienced first-hand.
A lot of people profess faith in the biblical God. People like Trump. But what does he do everytime he opens his yap? He lies. He has no faith because if he did he would believe the part about all liars being kept of of the golden cube.
Not one person in human history has ever had faith in the Jesus character because no one has ever been able to do what he said a person can easily do if he had faith. But those same people may believe that he existed although they don't have any proof that he did.
I would say perhaps as a child/teen that I kind of worshiped things similar to how our theists do.
Santa as a kid, as a child born on Xmas eve I was all consumed by Christmas for quite some time.
Worshiped would be a stretch but something akin.
As a teen I was massively into football (soccer for americans) and a huge Arsenal fan... I still am and take my children but it's not that obsessive following you have as a teenager.
That's as close as I can imagine id get as someone who had no religious indoctrination at all.
My lack of faith in Christianity is based on examination of the scriptures that are intended to support faith. It is not simply that there are contradictions. It is that the major contradictions are very clearly intentional and purposeful. The sine qua non of Christianity is the resurrection. Without that, as Paul tells us, nothing else about Christianity makes sense.
The original ending of Mark is highly suspicious. Nobody sees the resurrection or the risen Jesus. Some unknown person says that Jesus got up and left town. The End. Matthew realizes the problem and dresses his story up in a rather awkward way to ‘fix’ Mark. Luke makes major changes to Matthew’s story as part of his overall program of contradicting Matthew’s anti-Pauline stance. John changes it again to avoid some sticky problems in the previous Gospels. Paul’s story in 1 Corinthians 15 is rather over the top to the extent that none of the Gospel writers chose to use it, even though we know that at least Mark read 1 Corinthians because he quotes from it. Paul’s story is clearly an invented uber dramatic introduction to his argument that resurrection is possible, directed against the skeptics.
I do not need to have faith in any ‘B’ in order not to have faith in this particular ‘A’.