Quote:
"Faith is not a good reason to believe in any one thing. It's a bad reason to believe in everything. Faith is not synonymous with any one idea; it is synonymous with any strongly held idea, true or not. But one thing faith is not synonymous with is a logically justified idea."
There's a huge difference between a theologian and an apologist. An apologist is someone who believes in a specific God and tries to argue for the existence of their God by giving reasons for belief. They fail because there is no justified reason to believe. Where as the theologian is a former apologist who figured out that there is no justified reason to believe, so they stray into this obscure language so that their belief cannot be properly singled out.
Basically, the prophet Elisha ran into a large group of kids. The kids laughed at Elisha and mocked him for being bald. I guess that wasn't common in those times? Elisha cursed them in the name of God, and then of course God couldn't let a member of his click get picked on by some kids so he did what any mob boss would do to discipline young kids... He sends two female bears after the children. The bears rip the kids to shreds and eat them. How many kids were there?... 42 to be exact, at least by the Bible's account. This story can be found in Second Kinds chapter 2.
On Facebook I am friends with a, what I would call, fundamental Christian apologetic amateur theologian with an intellectual superiority complex. For the sake of this post, we will refer to him as "Charlie"... I was going to say we could call him "The Smartest Moron"
but I know I'd get pseudo-intellectual hate mail from him.
Since its introduction into the public view, evolutionary science has come under harsh criticism from many fronts. Originally, this was perfectly acceptable. All new theories and scientific disciplines come under fire. Not because they are naturally untrue, but because they must pass a trial by intellectual fire in order to be accepted. The first objections to evolution were based on three fronts...
The ability to tell right from wrong, good from evil, and the proper from the improper is what we refer to as “Moral Judgment.” It’s how we decide what actions should be illegal, what rights should be protected and how we should interact with others around us in our daily lives. As individuals, we exercise our moral judgment every time we speak or act in order to act in terms that are not offensive, obscene or misunderstood.
1. "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me."
This commandment isn't even about morality. It's about conformity. It's a jealous God telling you that you're not allowed to worship any other God. It almost seems as though he admits that other Gods exist. He must be, since the next commandment deals with the same issue, but specifically with non-existent Gods.
I was told that I, or atheists in general, have the same old tired arguments against God. To be entirely honest, I think that's true. But there's a good reason for it. As atheists, we can only respond to those God claims that we are presented with. If we could prove a negative, then we would prove Gods can't exist and be done with it. But since we cannot, we have to wait for a new God claim to come our way. We get presented with a new claim and we have new arguments. It has been a very long time since I've heard an original God claim.
My major issue with prayer is that it doesn't work. That alone should be reason enough to do away with this ancient practice. But people always want to point out the concept of "prayers for the injured, sick and dying." So once again I have to go into detail on why something that doesn't work shouldn't be done... My issue with prayers for the injured, sick and dying is that it has the best of intentions while doing nothing to solve the problem.
Yes, you do! Everyone is responsible for what they believe, why they believe it, and what they do with their beliefs! There are people out there who think they don't have to answer for their deeply held beliefs... We call them insane asylum patients. They have deeply held beliefs that they were asked to justify and they either did not or could not.
This is meant to simply clear something up for those who don't seem to understand. There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to atheism, and in this case it's probably because of our fickle nature. There seem to be a lot of "Non-Theists" out there who are using many different labels... "Brights, Pearlist, Agnostic, Humanist," etc... What I'd like to explain to those atheists out there is this... Ultimately, there are only two positions: Atheist and Theist.
What would the 10 Commandments be like if an Atheist wrote them?...
1.) Do not hurt or kill any living person unless that person is threatening your life or limb as well.
2.) Do not hurt or kill any living animal unless presented with a survival scenario, such as hunting for food.
Imagine you were born about 2,000 years in the future. (Roughly 4,000AD) You’re walking through the wilderness and stumble upon an ancient DVD of the movie “Titanic” by James Cameron. The disc is in disrepair but luckily there’s a multimedia device in the future that can still read it. Even though it’s two thousand years later there are still historical records of the real Titanic and the events that surrounded its destruction. Based on the current historical data of the real Titanic and the scenes depicted in the movie, one might assume the movie to be a good source for accurate historical information regarding the events of the Titanic's maiden voyage.
First things first... Slavery never was, nor will it ever be, good. Not under any circumstances or cultural contexts of any time.
For someone to tell me the Bible does not support male chauvinism and slavery is a ridiculous lie! This guy once told me that the Bible's laws regarding slavery were designed to be beneficial to slaves, especially female slaves! The damned book tells us female slaves are for raping! It tells us that you can sell your daughter into sexual slavery, and that you must sell her as a sex slave to the man who rapes her because he made her unclean! It tells us that female slaves serve for an eternity, while the men get off after 6 years!
The problem is see with religious moderation is it thinks it deserves more respect and leniency because it's "other than extreme.” I see religious moderation as a form of hypocrisy since moderate beliefs require that someone claim a title such as "Christian" and yet refrain from following and believing in key ideas supported by Christian texts in the Bible.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on the Foxhole Atheist Blog do not necessarily represent those of Atheism or all Atheists, seeing as how Atheism has no tenets, dogma or doctrines. So Suck it!
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