RIP Jack Chick

[The Brain]

I mean, why the long wait from Adam and Eve to Jesus? Why did it take that amount of time? If Jesus was going to be necessary, why not just skip over all the Old Testament stuff and have Jesus come along immediately?

And not murder almost all living things? Come on, you know God.

The weird thing is that I was raised a born again Christian. My mom was and is very evangelical.

So I was exposed to all this at a young age, and I believed it all because I was told that it was all true, I would burn in hell, etc., etc., etc.

But I can remember sitting in bible classes at a very, very young age asking these kinds of questions. I remember asking my Sunday school teacher if Satan could really just kill people and he told us sure, he could. So I asked, well...why doesn't he then?

I remember wondering these things, these kind of practical sorts of things. Where is heaven, exactly? Where is hell? Are they in some other galaxy or underground, or what?

How does Christ dieing for our sins actually result in salvation? Is God impressed so much by it that he forgives us...in which case it is up to him, right? And can't he just forgive us without the entire Jesus thing? And if he knew how the Jesus thing was going to play out, and we know he did because the "proof" of Jesus was based on prophesy...what was the point of actually doing it?

I spent a good amount of time believing in the "truth" of the fundamentalist Christian view of the world, while still not at all understanding how it could make sense. I think I assumed that the more I learned and understood as I got older, all this would start making sense - my lack of understanding was simply a lack of information or education since I *knew* the conclusion was "true".

So of course asking lots of questions would be the way to understand it better. Instead it just seemed to piss everyone off...

I'm one generation removed. My dad grew up in a very religious family, and most (all?) of his brothers and sisters are religious, some deeply so. My dad is not religious at all, and AFAIK hasn't been since a very early age. He is certainly a lot more anti-religion than I am... I've always found it curious how my religious relatives managed to deal with that kind of questions and still come out religious.

[The Brain]

I'm talking about you. Is it correct that to you they aren't enough?

I don't have children. Love and good meal aren't enough. So yes, it is correct. I found the missing part in what we are discussing here.

Then I stand by my husk comment.

Why are you bringing US college football into this?

God told me.

[LaCroix]

like religion, science isn't meant to be questioned

[Hamilcar]

I'm talking about you. Is it correct that to you they aren't enough?

I don't have children. Love and good meal aren't enough. So yes, it is correct. I found the missing part in what we are discussing here.

Then I stand by my husk comment.

Why are you bringing US college football into this?

God told me.

Have a doctor take a look, it's probably just a tumor.

[The Brain]

I'm talking about you. Is it correct that to you they aren't enough?

I don't have children. Love and good meal aren't enough. So yes, it is correct. I found the missing part in what we are discussing here.

Then I stand by my husk comment.

Why are you bringing US college football into this?

God told me.

Have a doctor take a look, it's probably just a tumor.

It's not a tumor!

[Hamilcar]

like religion, science isn't meant to be questioned

I think you'll find that questioning using proven methods is exactly what science is.

[Hamilcar]

It's not a tumor!

Schizophrenia then. Don't worry, there are medications.

[Berkut]

I mean, why the long wait from Adam and Eve to Jesus? Why did it take that amount of time? If Jesus was going to be necessary, why not just skip over all the Old Testament stuff and have Jesus come along immediately?

And not murder almost all living things? Come on, you know God.

The weird thing is that I was raised a born again Christian. My mom was and is very evangelical.

So I was exposed to all this at a young age, and I believed it all because I was told that it was all true, I would burn in hell, etc., etc., etc.

But I can remember sitting in bible classes at a very, very young age asking these kinds of questions. I remember asking my Sunday school teacher if Satan could really just kill people and he told us sure, he could. So I asked, well...why doesn't he then?

I remember wondering these things, these kind of practical sorts of things. Where is heaven, exactly? Where is hell? Are they in some other galaxy or underground, or what?

How does Christ dieing for our sins actually result in salvation? Is God impressed so much by it that he forgives us...in which case it is up to him, right? And can't he just forgive us without the entire Jesus thing? And if he knew how the Jesus thing was going to play out, and we know he did because the "proof" of Jesus was based on prophesy...what was the point of actually doing it?

I spent a good amount of time believing in the "truth" of the fundamentalist Christian view of the world, while still not at all understanding how it could make sense. I think I assumed that the more I learned and understood as I got older, all this would start making sense - my lack of understanding was simply a lack of information or education since I *knew* the conclusion was "true".

So of course asking lots of questions would be the way to understand it better. Instead it just seemed to piss everyone off...

I'm one generation removed. My dad grew up in a very religious family, and most (all?) of his brothers and sisters are religious, some deeply so. My dad is not religious at all, and AFAIK hasn't been since a very early age. He is certainly a lot more anti-religion than I am... I've always found it curious how my religious relatives managed to deal with that kind of questions and still come out religious.

Crap, I forgot my point in my post!

What I find amazing is that adults manage to get through that questioning phase and just...stop. People like Beeb simply don't let those kinds of questions that have no reasonable answer bother them, they apparently just shut off the part of their brain that demands answers to questions like that.

I don't think I could do that if I wanted to - I don't think I am capable of religious belief in the sense that I don't think I could choose to have faith.

That is my emotional response to Pascal's Wager. If I am in fact wrong, and someone asks me to account for my lack of belief, I figure I can fall back on "I believe as I was created - by you apparently - to believe, and I have no free will to believe in that which is not believable".

[Martinus]

There is more to spirituality than blind belief though.

[Admiral Yi]

I interpret Marty's comment about the need for myths in terms of organizing principles.  Nothing really has inherent meaning.  We create our own meaning.

[Martinus]

I interpret Marty's comment about the need for myths in terms of organizing principles.  Nothing really has inherent meaning.  We create our own meaning.

Yup. Find your own religion and be its prophet. Don't be a follower of someone else's religion.

[The Brain]

I interpret Marty's comment about the need for myths in terms of organizing principles.  Nothing really has inherent meaning.  We create our own meaning.

Yup. Find your own religion and be its prophet. Don't be a follower of someone else's religion.

[Admiral Yi]

 

[Martinus]

 

[The Minsky Moment]

  How about this old trope: can your god make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?

Yes.  And then he'd lift it just the same.
This is like a atheist's Anselm's Proof.  Argument by semantics.