This is a Letter to the Editor I wrote today. Is this a fair test?
I have a message for my believing friends and it’s something that believers should really listen to and think about. As a realist who doesn’t believe in God I am often challenged to open my heart and let Jesus in. I am reluctant to do so without any evidence that God exists.
I am told that when one becomes a believer that they have a personal relationship with God and the God transforms you and you become one with the Lord. So from my point of view I should be able to see the difference in the behavior of those who believe as compared to those who don’t believe. But I’m not seeing it. Especially in the latest news coming out about the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.
So let me be clear and direct about this so you Catholics listen up. If there is an omnipotent God and a person or a religious group has a personal relationship with God then you wouldn’t be raping children – period! The Catholic Church would not be covering up for those priests who are raping children. Admittedly, this doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but it does prove that the Catholic Church does not have a personal relationship with an omnipotent God, because if they did this sort of thing simply would not occur.As a member of the reality based community I am dedicated to believing in anything that is real. If God is real then I will believe. But how am I to determine if God is actually and truly real and which of the thousands of religions it is true one? Turning to your Bible the standard is “You will know them by their fruits.” Clearly the Catholics have failed the “fruit test” because of the pervasive raping of children and the cover up by the Vatican.
As to the rest of religions and independent Christians, Muslims, or other believers, you aren’t going to convert Atheists unless you can show us that God actually has transformed your life in a way that is observable to the reality based world. Even if God can’t be observed directly, if you claim God has changed your life then those changes should be observable in your life and in your religious group as a whole. And if these changes aren’t observable then we in the reality based community aren’t going to listen to what you have to say. If you are going to convert Atheists you are going to have to pass your “Fruit Test” to get our attention.
if you delete religion then logically you must also delete the equally irrational and arbitrary notion of morality, which puts child rape back on the table. Problem solved.
All this judgement crap about good and evil just gets in the way of natural selection, without access to tools such as infanticide, euthanasia, genocide and rape etc how is it possible to exterminate the weak and ensure the survival of the fittest? Not to mention population and climate control.
Yes Marc, the godless, scientific societies of Stalin, Hitler and Mao showed the way, now it’s time for your sort to take it to the next stage.
“Catholic Child Rape” just proves that the “Church” is an ON-GOING CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE BASED ON THE ***LONGEST RUNNING FRAUD IN HUMAN HISTORY*** !!! Short Answer: YES, IN SPADES !!!
The “Church” is a CULT, JUST LIKE SCIENTOLOGY !!!
For your own and your children’s sanity, STAY AWAY !!!
Seriously JimD? All caps?
Sub-intelligent morons like you will be weeded out once we get this pseudo-religious constitution sorted.
“All men created equal”? What religious freak came up with that nonsense? Like JimD here is my equal, he writes at the level of a 10 year old and by the looks of things his favorite book is “The Da Vinci Code”.
A sub-standard human.
This topic was designed to put the Christians on the defensive. A defensive position is a losing position. It makes secular Humanists feel smug.
The secular Humanists in the communist countries are not brought up. The secular humanists who commit suicide, get venerial diseases or do drugs at a high level aren’t brought up. The secular humanists in the schools that fiddle with the kids aren’t brought up. But keep feeling smug; you found a flaw in a Christian organization.
Meanwhile the Christians mostly have divine love, power, hope, transformation and morals.
Secular humanists aren’t claiming that they have a personal connection with a deity. When you say God is in your heart and God talks to you then the bar goes up. What you do is what God does.
A letter to the editor of what?
Marc,
Not really seeing the logic you’re using. By that definition it would seem that once you told someone you loved them you’d never need to say it again. Or that someone that cheated on their spouse didn’t love their spouse. These things do not nessesarily follow.
I’m not saying what the Church did was in any way acceptable. One does expect much more of them, but your argument needs development.
#26, GetReal, re:”If you think back long enough in time, some force had to create the very first matter.”
Why do you think that? That’s just a silly guess based on… absolutely nothing.
I could just as easily say that there was no beginning and there is no end to “matter”. The law of Conservation of Energy suggests that energy can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system, it can only be transformed from one state to another. Or maybe our matter came from the collapse of another dimension.
My point is, there didn’t ‘have’ to be an original force, a god, or a creation in any sense whatsoever. It’s our evolved awareness that our lives are finite, death is inescapable, and thereafter there is most likely nothing. Since you can’t wrap your limited brain power around that idea, you have to fill the void with something comforting, but nonetheless totally fabricated.
Good writeup, Mark, but the problem with us atheists making these arguments is:
deists refuse to examine their beliefs dispassionately;
deists take chance events and believe they must be guided;
deists think their religion makes them acceptable humans;
deists think they wouldn’t have a moral compass without religion;
deists think their religion can shield them and abrogate their mistakes and responsibilities;
deists think other religions or disbelief mean the others are wrong fundamentally, without any proof or discussion.
Atheists examine their lives and determine what they believe or not according to thought and reason;
atheists realize chance and chaos is part of the universe and not to be feared or worshiped;
atheists do not need something magical to validate their humanity;
atheists do not need something magical to tell them how and when to be good humans;
atheists do not hide from their responsibilities and mistakes;
atheists analyze their world to determine whether they are wrong.
I am Atheist because I need no mystical being guiding me to do anything. I am responsible for my life and my choices, and I revel in my life. I regret some things, I accept that I can be wrong, I examine what I did, and I move on and try to be a better person.
I also am sad for those humans who insist on the crutch of giving their moral compass and responsibility to others, instead of taking control of it themselves. It is far far easier to be a sheep and shepherd than it is to be a wolf.
The other difference: unlike deists, I don’t demand they change and live their lives like I do. I present the facts of my life and how I feel, they can ignore it and continue in the herd, or they can begin to think and take responsibility. It is not my place to force them, but only to teach and hope they see what their true potential is.
Marc,
As a Non-Denominational Christian Minister, I couldn’t AGREE with you more!
I’d like to focus on a couple of your points…
1. You’re right, how could ANYONE even WANT to open their heart to let God in without evidence? Anyone who would try to “convince” you to believe in God without evidence shouldn’t be in the “converting business”.. lol…
2. And you’re right again, once you have a relationship with God, The Holy Spirit will give you a NEW heart… Not a physical one, but a new heart that will literally change your very state of being.
3. You’re right again, (ugg, the humanity), if someone is a believer, you SHOULD be able to SEE the difference in the person… The sad part, is a study done a few years ago found that 90% of those who would call themselves “Christians” don’t show ANY fruits at all. They said a prayer once and someone told them they were saved. It’s sad, but it’s a reality. There are too many people trying to do the Lords work who really don’t know HOW to do it. Either that, or they’re accepting peoples “Decisions for Christ” in order to show someone how many “Souls they’ve saved”. Nobody can “save someones soul”, that’s GODS job.
4. You didn’t specifically mention this, but Catholics are NOT Christians. They believe in Christ, but their beliefs are NOT “strictly” Biblical. Their belief system is sadly more Pagan influenced. So your claim that the Catholics don’t have a personal relationship with God is WELL FOUNDED… Sorry, to anyone who’s going to get mad at me for saying this, do your own homework. It’s 2010, there’s plenty of QUALITY research material on the Internet for you to read through to find out the truth about this. Reading through the Vatican’s site, THEY even have difficuly explaining WHY they think certain things. They KNOW they do things that aren’t Biblical!
5. You’re right again, belief in “reality” is MANDATORY! Ask anyone who knows what they’re talking about. Ask them if it says ANYWHERE in the Bible that you are to believe ON FAITH ALONE. Seriously. I’ll tell you right now, there’s nothing in the Bible that says that. Paul writes, “that the things that are seen are transient, but the things unseen are eternal”. Considering that God exists “outside of time” (remember, time is the 4th observable dimension, so if God exists outside of time, that’s what, 5th, 6th…10th?) it’s no wonder God is not “visible as a human would be”… Even still, God is NOT intangible.
6. Again, knowing them by their fruits is THE litmus test! There is NO RELIGION that will help you find God. NONE… I’ve dedicated a great deal of time to studying the Bible and it’s Hebrew and Greek roots and all of the arguments aside, I can find NO FAULT in the current “translations” of the Bible, just faults in peoples “interpretations” of the Bible. (yes, there are some bad translations too, but I’m talking about the “more acceptable” translations. And no, the NIV is not one of the “more acceptable” translations. The NIV is scary!) Interpretation is equal to “Religion”. Any time “man” puts his hands on something, he messes it up. No matter how many things people complain about in the Bible, you could rip out HALF of the pages and still have the Gospel intact!
7. I hate to admit this “out loud”, but my changes have been “so observable”, that my family doesn’t know what to do with me. Please don’t look at entire “religious groups” as the key to whether or not God exists. In my experience, religion has done MORE to UNDERMINE God that to HELP God. I’m sure you’d agree…
I’m told that the Ancient Hebrew language doesn’t have a word for “coincidence”. The reason I mention this, is because I literally JUST setup a Blog of my own a few days ago to help combat this exact problem. As someone who’s spent the past 31 years as an IT Expert, I invite one and all to visit my Blog (which should be linked to this post) so that they can read MY Testimony as to HOW I had God *PROVEN* to me.
As for the poster of #49, there’s only one slight hole in your position… Your “evolved awareness” isn’t based on “scientific fact” either. Everyone knows that “science” is a study of the “observable”. Since no one alive today was alive at the creation of the Universe, ANY belief you may hold is based on “FAITH”. –Think about it
God Bless,
RevKeith
http://keiththerev.blogspot.com/
I hate atheists..
An atheist says “There is NO god!” Which is the exact flip side to the religious persons “There IS a god!” A truly honest “thinking person” should at least leave the door open to the possibility to some sort of higher power that’s smarter than you John Dvorak and maybe has a plan that you cant even fathom. Get over yourself Dvorak…you’re not smarter then the 80% of the world that believes in some sort of god.
“Get over yourself Dvorak…you’re not smarter then the 80% of the world that believes in some sort of god.”
Firstly, there is a very good chance that he is.
Secondly, I’ve never heard Dvorak say that there is no god of any sort.
It’s not that the genius is 100 years ahead of his time but rather that the common man is 100 years behind.
In some cases, thousands of years behind.
#51, reverend, re:”As for the poster of #49, there’s only one slight hole in your position… Your “evolved awareness” isn’t based on “scientific fact” either. Everyone knows that “science” is a study of the “observable”.
While evolved awareness isn’t scientific fact, it is testable and observable. Other animals have varying degrees of self awareness, as proven by reproducible experiment. Evolution is a proven fact, so far as facts can be determined by a wealth of physical evidence combined with supportive short term experiments on short life-cycle life. So the “faith” component is a minor and dwindling component of the reality of evolution. God, on the other hand, has absolutely no similar physical evidence of any kind that can be linked to his existance in any testable and observable way. 100% faith with no reality component.
Misbehaviour by Christians disproves their claim that they have been made perfect by God. (if, indeed, they claimed this.)
But it doesn’t disprove God.
That’s just simple logic.
BTW, you don’t hear we liberal Christians touting our superiority the way you hear fundamentalist Christians and atheists doing.
I honestly don’t believe my group is better than yours. The same for me as an individual.
I do believe that humble mindfulness of God can lead some to a better life. (I just Googled and saw that there is some research showing this.)
#36 “..we can logically and realistically predict the existence of extraterrestrial life. By accurate analogy, you will have to physically provide a god that we can scientifically test here on earth to prove it’s existence..”
You only have to predict and I have to physically provide a god?
I say again if I have to provide physical, tangible proof to Marc then you should also have to provide physical, tangible proof to me of extraterrestrial life. Saying the odds are in your favor of ET just doesn’t cut it.
To RBG
“Marc: Please don’t pretend to call yourself a “realist” while ignoring the massive good the church does around the world. Stuff atheists have no clue how to accomplish.”
Atheists and other non-Christians do massive good without trying to convert people (this is a good thing), and they do good deeds without thinking that the Guy in the Sky is watching them all the time.
“And don’t pretend you know anything about religion if you can completely forget to mention the concept of “the devil” as understood and believed by many religions.”
Just because you believe in a “devil” doesn’t mean that being exists. Humans develop their own forms of evil. Jim Jones is a classic example, but religions kill others all the time in the name of various deities, when those deities don’t exist.
Cap’nKangaroo… do you realize how obvious it is, the way you try to trick yourself into believing the nonsense you put forth?
You purposely omitted the first 2/3 of my argument… the part with facts and logic… to try and justify your non-existent foundation for any type of supernatural being. If you want to be truthful to yourself and appear sincere to anyone else, find a real hole in my argument or just continue to live your lie.
re my statement:
“There is, in fact, proof of life in the universe. Our Earth is teeming with it. We also know there are other solar systems. We also know that they are common. Based on those facts and a wealth of chemistry and biology facts, we can logically and realistically predict the existence of extraterrestrial life. By accurate analogy, you will have to physically provide a god that we can scientifically test here on earth [like we test the earth, other planets, moons, asteroids, light signatures / direct observation from other solar systems] to prove it’s existence and then see if the same set of parameters exist outside our earth.”
Frank Zappa said it best:
“Religion is the manifestation of the chimpanze parts of the brain”
cool another bigoted story on Dvorak, who woulda guessed