The choice is constantly presented on this board that you have to conform either to atheism, or to Christianity or Paganism.
There is a path that comes between these ideologies: Deism, or the belief in God on the basis of reason. This was the belief of the ancient philosophers, many of the the Founding Fathers of America, like Franklin and Jefferson, Goethe, Voltaire, and many other great thinkers throughout history.
A good introduction to it is Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason": deism.com
Okay, but atheism is the only rational path where you don't believe in imaginary omnipotent beings
The very founders of rationality, the ancient philosophers, like Thales, Plato, and Aristotle, believed in God. There are innumerable rational arguments for the existence of God, the most obvious of which is the first cause argument.
The quintessential rationalist, Voltaire, mocked atheism for its irrationality.
>believing in shit that cannot be proven is rational
"I have always been convinced that atheism cannot do any good, and may do very great harm. I have pointed out the infinite difference between the sages who have written against superstition and the madmen who have written against God. There is neither philosophy nor morality in any system of atheism." - Voltaire
I'm sorry my friend, but the Bible is true. You can't just believe in some random deity when the real, true God is Jesus Christ.
See, a religion is either true or false. You don't believe in something just for the heck of it. We on Sup Forums believe in the word of God because it is true.
You don't have to do jack shit. Some of us just wanted to warn you that your choices, and your lack of choices, and your wrong choices have consequences. And pretending you can escape those consequences through your own disbelief is more than delusional.
"blub blub waahh muh sky wizards, hitler/stalin/mao were atheists *autistic screeching*" - Theists
Again, you have the right to rebel against the eternal Almighty.
If you think that is going to go well for you, again, you're quite delusional.
>We on Sup Forums believe in the word of God because it comes based shit skins
Part of your problem is that you have bought into the postmodern idea that there is no absolute truth.
It is an aphorism that is quite easily disproven.
"There is no such thing as absolute truth."
Is that statement true?
>Believe in my god or bad things will happen to you
Such a benevolent god you believe in.
There are only two choices
Jesus or Satan
From the ancient philosophers onward men have believed in God - the creator of the universe, all-powerful, all-wise, all-good. I invite you to tell me what your particular religion persuasion adds to this, apart, perhaps, from asserting foolish and monstrous things about him, such as that he ordered the massacres of innocents, or that he will cast people into eternal hellfire simply for not believing in such and such a doctrine or an alleged fact.
Long before Jesus taught or before the Book of Genesis was written, Xenophanes of Colophon wrote: "There is one God - supreme among gods and men - who is like mortals in neither body nor mind. He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. Without toil he swayeth all things by the thought of his mind. And he abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at all; nor doth it befit him to go about now hither now thither." This was all deduced entirely by the faculty of reason.
As European men we must believe in a God that originated in the brown Middle East.
That is the most logical answer.
"The constant uniformity discoverable in the laws which regulate the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and in the motion of our globe, and which is found to prevail also in every species and genus of animals, vegetables, and minerals, indicates one mover only. If there were two, they would be either different from each other, or hostile to each other, or similar to each other. Were they different, there would be no mutual adaptation in the works of nature. Were they hostile, all things would destroy each other. If they are similar, it is as if there were but one: there is, in that case, one more than is required.
I am confirmed in the belief that there is but a single principle, a single mover, the moment I direct my attention to the unchanging and uniform laws pervading all nature.”
>Thales, Plato, and Aristotle
>Voltaire
Stop name dropping.
>the first cause argument
You assume there must be a so called "first cause". You assume that it is a god. You assume that it's name is Yahweh/Jesus. And you assume that Yahweh/Jesus has the exact same political opinions that you do.
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
...
"If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it we want to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us the existence of an Almighty Power that governs and regulates the whole? And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our senses infinitely stronger than anything we can read in a book that any impostor might make and call the word of God? As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience."
>asserting foolish and monstrous things about him, such as that he ordered the massacres of innocents, or that he will cast people into eternal hellfire simply for not believing in such and such a doctrine or an alleged fact
It's not up to you or me to decide whether the Word of God is "monstrous and foolish". Frankly I don't care, you'll have to ask God why he did what he did, but I don't know of any story where God ordered the "massacre of innocents". The Bible says that all are sinners and come short of heaven, but because God loves us, he sent his only begotten son to die for our us, and whosoever believeth in him may have ever lasting life. There is no point in believing in the existence of "a God" if the belief in that God won't grant you salvation -- which believing in Jesus Christ DOES.
No Deist ever believed that Jesus is God. Thomas Paine, for example, called him simply "a virtuous and an amiable man," and Jefferson wrote: "I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other."
This is circular reasoning. How will you substantiate any of your beliefs? And why should anybody forsake the conscience and reason that God gave them, to follow your particular religious sect, which competes with tens of thousands of other ones in claiming absolute truth for itself?
Such massacres are common in the Old Testament. See, for example, Numbers 31:13, where Moses orders the butchering of boys, the massacre of mothers, and the debauching of daughters. This prompted Paine to say that "Among the detestable villains that in any period of the world have disgraced the name of man, it is impossible to find a greater than Moses, if this account be true."
There's nothing wrong with belief in a god if you also believe rational explanations for natural phenomena
>No Deist
I'm not talking about deists. I'm talking about you, deus vulter.
I am a Deist. I started the thread.
It doesn't have to be amoral unless it's used to justify amoral actions, but it's not rational.
>not rational.
I never said it was. It's something I'm willing to accept in others, though.
Do you consider it rational to suppose that everything in the universe, and all its perfectly-regulated laws, originally proceed from nothing?
Don't have a better explanation, but just saying "God did it" is lazy.
Of course it's circular reasoning, because it's impossible to prove any scripture factually true. That's why it's called "faith", because you're taking a leap of faith. But as far as Christianity goes, no scripture as powerful as the Word of God could have been written by man. You feel it just from reading the Bible -- the Holy Spirit will come to you.
Believing Christianity in particular is just as rational as believing in a God in general.
>Such massacres are common in the Old Testament
You'll find it from time to time in the Old Testament, but never in the New Testament. Guess which testament we're living in today? Also, the massacres in Numbers 31 aren't even on innocent people, because the people had willfully and knowingly drawn people away from the Word of God and was following Balaam and Balphagor.
>I am a Deist
You are confused. You fly the christian catholic crusader flag, but are none of those things.
He never said that dumbass
Were two and a half thousand years of philosophers, from Xenophanes of Colophon in the 6th century B. C. to Anthony Flew (a recent defector from atheism to Deism) "lazy?" Have you read and considered their arguments?
Of course he wouldn't say it directly because that goes against the narrative of religions that they must be good to others. "Hate the sin not the sinner". It's duplicitous bullshit to cover up the fact that a lot of you use religion to justify your hatred of others.
I feel only abhorrence when I consider the doctrines of orthodox Christianity - the dogma of eternal hellfire is impossibly wicked and cruel to conceive, and utterly at variance with the all-merciful and all-good attributes of the Creator.
Jesus Christ himself was clearly eminently good and virtuous, but there is no reason to believe much of the nonsense which the biographers considered canonical by the church have written of him, if the conclusions we come to are unjust in consequence of that belief. Reason and conscience came first, from God, long before this thing which you call faith (which I term enthusiasm, and which you share with Muslims, Jews, and every other kind of fideist).
Are children not to be considered "innocent?" Are they fodder then to be slaughtered and debauched for their parents' sins? Conscience revolts at such a notion.
Jesus, by his own word, isn't God
>Mark 10:18
What sect of Christianity teaches that nonsense?
Notice how he spares the female infants, but not the male infants? It was not permitted to kill women and children in war, so the sword of war should spare women and children, as incapable of resisting -- but the sword of justice knows no distinction, except that of guilty or not guilty, or more or less guilty. This was the execution of a righteous sentence upon a guilty nation, in which the women were the greatest criminals, and it may safely be said that their lives were forfeited by their personal transgressions. With respect to the execution of the male infants, who cannot be supposed to have been guilty, God, the author and supporter of life, who has a right to dispose of it when and how he thinks proper, commanded it. The boys were all slain, either because they might be inclined to resent the injury done to their relations, or because they were all consecrated to Beelphegor, the first-born to be his priests, the rest to be victims, if necessary, to avert any evil, which is the reason the first-born were slain in Egypt.
The idea that God can not do as he pleases, as the creator of all things, is preposterous. The idea that we has his creation shall judge his commands, is ridiculous. We know that God is good because the Bible says so. We also know that we can not fully understand God's decisions. The Bible even says, "great is the mystery of godliness".
Anyway, the only reason you feel that the doctrine of eternal hellfire is "abhorrent" is that you don't understand the Bible of the teachings of Jesus Christ, or Christian theology. Getting saved is as easy as drinking a glass of water, the question is if you're willing to do it.
>Mark 10:18
So Jesus isn't good? Lol, the verse is either saying that Jesus is NOT GOOD and NOT GOOD. Or that Jesus IS GOD, and IS GOOD. Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh. That's mainstream Christian theology. Maybe you're some sort of Pentacostal oneness retard?