An Atheist's Take on Christian Prayer.

If you will notice I put "morals", in quotation marks because I was referring to this statement:

and it was not my judgement on Atheists but I was merely referring to what they have said about themselves in this thread.

 

Quite honestly, you'll have to do better than this.

For instance, in what way would following the bible make one "morally bankrupt"?

How does "All things, therefore, that YOU want men to do to YOU, YOU also must likewise do to them" or "You must love your neighbor as yourself" make a person morally bankrupt? (Matthew 7:12; Matthew 22:39)

How have we moved beyond this?

Personally, I would say no one has moved beyond this, if that is even possible and that most of mankind hasn't even caught up to it yet.

 

- http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
- John 1:19

Kill, kill, kill, loophole forgiveness, righteousness... Christian morality in a nutshell.

 

Right church, wrong pew. The passages you quote about all the killing are from the Law of Moses, which applied to Jews under the Covenant. Christians, who are under the law of Noah, have never been bound by these rules. And the Jews don't follow them today either--at least the killing part. The forgiveness part is Christian, but it applies only to those who are sincerely contrite--not those who sin in the presumption that they will be forgiven for doing so. Not really a loophole. Times have changed. So what is your point?

 

Apologies. I should have said, "If we followed the [entire] bible (as a nation) we would be morally bankrupt."

Sure, there's decent parts like the one you mentioned (which is neither singularly impressive or novel) but you left out all of the hideous parts (another HipForums member posted some above) which if we followed would make us extremely immoral.

 

On that, I agree. As I said, those "hideous parts" aren't part of Christianity, although it does make me wonder how anyone can view scripture as "inerrant". Taken literally, the Bible (OT) seems to justify genocide, misogyny, slavery, and homophobia. Was there ever a time when God was into all that? I don't think so.

 

In school, did you ever have a teacher that gave you a test and told you to read the entire test first before answering any of the questions and at the top of the test it also said read the entire test before answering any of the questions? On the last page of the test it said do not answer any of the questions on this test, just put your name on the first page and sit quietly until the period is over, then turn in your test.

The truth is the whole Bible is summed up by Jesus when he says; "'You must love God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. The second, like it, is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)

And then Jesus gave us an update commandment; "I am giving YOU a new commandment, that YOU love one another; just as I have loved YOU, that YOU also love one another.” (John 13:34) That means we should have a self sacrificing love for one another.

So if a person follows the "whole Bible", this is the "morally bankruptcy" that he aspires to.

 

Well put. That's how I read the Bible. For an OT summary, I also like Micah 6:8.

 

In light of everything said before, I couldn't disagree more.

 

^ maybe because you don't have a very good understanding of the Bible or Christianity outside of evilbible.com and the like.

The excerpts you look for are in same places you will find condemnation of wearing blended fibers, bringing baldness upon your head, etc. Even the stubborn most evangelical Christian will tell you that all of it is outdated and doesn't apply to Christianity. Most Christians see the Old Testament as a History lesson, a look at how it was before Jesus, and how much better things became through Jesus. Not as a literal guide on how things are today. When was the last time you've seen a mob of Christians stoning a woman to death because she cheated on her husband? Jesus erased all of that nonsense when he came into the picture and demanded only Love.

 

Note: I myself don't read the Bible anymore. And when I did I didn't take everything literally. I was taught in Luthern Bible school that each story means different things to everyone who reads it. The words themselves aren't as important as the connection you have with God, and the Lesson he wants you get out of it.

 

Like what? So far you've made a lot of unsupported statements and when someone points that out, all you have to say is you couldn't disagree more. I'm beginning to think that maybe you haven't thought the whole thing out very well.

 

I'm an atheist myself. We basically can see that religion is something for people to hide behind. You can call it hope, but we call it fear. Fear that there will be absolute nothing when we die. I mean it does sound appealing to dream of a land of milk and honey after you die, but it's not a very realistic idea.

 

I call it neither hope nor fear, but meaning. “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”(Nietzsche) I don't expect to be going anywhere after I die but six feet under, to be food for innumerable worms, and I expect to stay there until I rot. I don't fear it, because I don't expect to be aware of it. If I experience immortality, I expect it to be only as a memory for those who survive me. I hope it's a good one, but I won't really care because I'll be unaware of it. I'd like to face death as my parents and brother did. They were class acts and hard acts to follow.

I think the kingdom of Heaven is here on this earth now--or can be with the right attitude. It's a way of viewing reality. Jesus said : "The kingdom of the Father is spread out over the earth, and men do not see it." (Thomas, 113) "Behold the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." (Luke 17:2021) Why stand you looking up to Heaven? Likewise, with Hell. Hell is a bad attitude.

This is one of those issues that separates Progressive Christians from Evangelicals, who tend to be preoccupied with personal salvation in the Great Bye and Bye. Bruce Bawer (Stealing Jesus) and Robin Meyers (Saving Jesus From the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus) make a convincing argument that this superstition distorts what Christianity is really about--no "land of milk and honey after we die" but a world potentially transformed by Jesus's teachings of unconditional universal love.

 

We? Talk for yourself, not all atheists have that view on religion. It's very subjective. And I know from experience, not just from what I project on every religious person like you seem to do, that not nearly all of them have faith in a God or religious outlook out of fear of the afterlife.

 

A billion hands clasped in prayer aren't worth 2 working ones.

 

That's cool but prayer isn't something you do with your hands.

 

At least not the prayers that actually mean something. Many pray out of habit, and routine. Which could be said are done with their hands I guess, because there's not much meaning behind it.

I remember reading an article discussing the possible effect prayer has on healing the sick. It went over a long list of studies from all sorts of sources. From athiest groups to Christian groups and everything in between. Obviously the results are dramitally different depending on how the study is done. But the author of the article gave an excllent attempt at dissecting all of the information. Basically, he/she found that if you dont believe in the power of prayer then it's not gonna do shit for you. Why would it? But if you do believe, prayer can have a positive effect. Call it placebo, call it tricks of the mind, call it bullshit.....I don't care. I choose to believe that good positive vibes can go a long way. You don't have to believe in God to agree with that.

 

Other than believing that prayer does no discernible good in benefiting anyone, I find it rather appalling that when a sick individual feels better people would rather thank god than the doctor who did the actual healing.

 

Prayer is less about asking favors from god(s), than it is communing and connecting with something beyond yourself and your own limited perception and experience - which is what I think spirituality essentially is. You could argue that dreams aren't real and because of that, have no real value beyond restorative sleep - and I'm certain that you could find a large number of people who would agree with you, but I bet you'd find it nearly impossible to find someone who would be willing to have the ability to dream deliberately taken from them, simply because dreams are generally considered unreal.