Jesus Harry Christ, what is all this crap... bla bla bla, just skimming... still doesn't seem like anyone else has tried to explain why so many jack ass Gods... Bla yada yada bla bla... Okie can list off a zillion ways Christians have done wonderful things. Yeah, no shit!? They ARE the dominant population in all the Americas, it would be kind of super fucked up if they never tossed a few drops in the bucket, hell it's a tax exclusion and dopamine hit as well. What really matters is that you THINK you're helping, send little Taclicktah some grains and a bible... "here's some food, birth control is evil, now go make lots of Christian babies". Cook your wonderful self righteous ass some delicious steak, God loves the smell of cooked flesh, God happy. Happy, happy, happy.
“You shall love the stranger as yourself,” “The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.” “You shall not curse the deaf or place a stumbling block before the blind.” “You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” “You shall not go about as a talebearer (or gossipmonger) among your people.” “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” “Do not take revenge or bear a grudge.” “You shall not reap the corners of your vinyard, but rather leave them for the poor.” “You shall respect the elderly.” “You shall use honest weights and measures.” “In judging a dispute, you shall not show undue favoritism for the poor or the rich.” Where can you find those passages in the Book of Atheism?
from post 65, I assume you mean why are so many gods sadistic jackasses and the reason is it is by your invocation. that is it in your nut shell
I would be considered an atheist in most peoples' book. And yet the things you have written are in my book, also. But to your list, I would add, "You shall not judge atheists as incomplete humans."
Being either an atheist or a theist says not much about a person if that's the only thing you know. You can be a convicting and judgmental asshole either way.
All those are variation on the golden rule. Common sense stuff in any caring person. Post 72, Sounds like you're almost one rational thought away from being a horrible jackass atheist. Sounds like you're saying God is a process in a nutshell. Ever improved upon work of fiction. Gotta love that more righteous yet still quite horrific Jewish God, that Old Terror. Someday lets hope our future societies are nice enough that people can only dream up nice Gods.
It says that in my book, too, and I don't. That's in the New Testament: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." Jesus. The list I gave you was purely Old Testament Pentateuch, specifically Leviticus--the parts that never get quoted in all the fuss over men sleeping with men, not eating lobster, etc.
One thought can make a big difference. "God is a process". Very good! God is a work in progress. Process theology is quite the rage in mainline Protestant seminaries, as a way of making sense of our remarkable success in winning so many cosmic lotteries. If Pikia hadn't survived the Burgess extinction, we wouldn't be having this conversation, to which some might say "No loss", but others like me get all mystical about it. At minimum, God is the summation of human idealism. Good enough, but there's evidence of maybe more. As a betting man, I take inspiration from the Book of Brian: "Look on the bright side of life." I live my life "as if...." for more on process theology, see Alfred North Whitehead, Process and reality; Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes; John Cobb and D. R. Griffen, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition; Bruce Epperly, Process Theology: A guide for the Perplexed; C. Robert Mesely, Process Theology: A Basic Introduction.
Would it be better if on the internet anyway we would just use labels for the failures (had a right to fail) like the atheists do. I hear that Joan Rivers was an atheist when she had cardiac arrest in the lawyer's, or maybe it was doctor's, office. Cardiac, remember, is different from coronary.
I came across this observation by Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist, Google director of engineeringeng and expert on Artificial Intelligence. It doesn't particularly help my case for God, but it does tie in with what I've said about the importance of pattern-seeking and analogical reasoning in the evolution of gods and religion. Kruzweil writes: "humans are far more skilled at recognizing patterns than in thinking through logical combinations, so we rely on this aptitude for almost all of our mental processes. Indeed, pattern recognition comprises the bulk of neural circuitry." This feature enables the human brain to outdo a PC in such feats as remembering faces or creating metaphors, while we are far inferior in our ability to deal with probelms that need to be sovlved serially. Because of the slowness of our individual neurons, "we don't have time..to think too many new thoughts when we are pressed to make a decision", but instead "we use our pattern-recognition to recognize a situation as compatible to one we have thought about and then draw upon our previously considered concludions." This would give us an evolutionary advantage in situations where it's importatnt to recognize potential dangers in our environment--even at the expense of "false positives". Unlike science, which is preoccupied with avoiding Type 1 errors (accepting propositions that are false), human survival may place a greater premium on avoiding Type 2 errors (rejecting propositions that could be true).