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Reasons for not being religious (Read 5718 times)
bogarde73
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Reasons for not being religious
Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:22am
 
Let me say first of all that I wish I could be religious. It must be great to have some belief that allows you not to have to face the universe alone.
But for me one of the crunchers is the cruelty of nature.
If there is a God, why does HE find it necessary to subject HIS creatures to cruel suffering deaths. I exclude homo sapiens from this because, with the exception of accident & illness, he has the intellect to avoid cruelty.
But when I see eg. a new born antelope crouching in the grass while the mother tries to distract a predator, I wonder why the system is designed so that beasts rip each other apart.
Why couldn't a Supreme Designer arrange things so that one species fed off only the dead of another?
What's the need for the savagery?
Does the Supreme Designer actually hate HIS creations?

(NB masculine gender used to be provocative . .lol)
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muso
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #1 - Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:28am
 
You can be religious without believing in an interventionist God.
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bogarde73
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #2 - Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:37am
 
I don't know what that means.
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #3 - Nov 28th, 2013 at 11:50am
 
The cruelity of nature is my main reasons for rejecting the idea of a creator God. 

My second reason for rejection is that the creator God created Hell for ordinary people who's only crime was to not believe in the Bibles teachings and accept Jesus Christ (as taught in the Bible) as their Lord and Saviour!

Those two reasons alone are enough to make me believe that God is a human creation.

Nature is a sad reality of survival.  IF theRE was a loving creator nature would be very different. 

When I have discussed this idea with Christians they tell me that it's all due to the fall of man.  So basically they teach that because humanity did not obey God, everything in nature turned against each other, due to Gods system of 'freewill'.  Well frankly that's a God that scares the crap out of me and not one I would wish to spend eternity with worshiping!!!
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bogarde73
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #4 - Nov 29th, 2013 at 10:14am
 
But of course it's not just Christianity which posits a Supreme Being. Most religions do.

While I find my self unable to accept these notions, at the same time and unlike a lot of religion-haters (socialists & etc), I do admire a lot of the good works that religious organisations do and have done. (Wait for it - someone will chime in with "like protecting paedophiles. Well, d**heads, there are rotten apples in every barrel)
One has only to look at the Salvos and envy the belief that drives them to perform such good works..
Similarly, I greatly admire the way the Roman church preserved a lot of the old wisdom & writings through the monastic system during the dark ages following the collapse of Rome.
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #5 - Nov 30th, 2013 at 9:45pm
 
Excellent thread guys.

No wonder I so like the freedom of speech ideal.
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #6 - Dec 5th, 2013 at 2:50am
 
Having had an out of body experience, I figured that religion is one big waste of time. Perhaps save for the social aspect. When you die, no matter what you have done, you are going to experience a type of bliss (free from the restraints of the human body). Spending time hoping that the man in the sky will forgive you for kissing Janie-Jane behind the shower block in year 7, is a waste of time.
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #7 - Dec 5th, 2013 at 6:51am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:22am:
Let me say first of all that I wish I could be religious. It must be great to have some belief that allows you not to have to face the universe alone.
But for me one of the crunchers is the cruelty of nature.
If there is a God, why does HE find it necessary to subject HIS creatures to cruel suffering deaths. I exclude homo sapiens from this because, with the exception of accident & illness, he has the intellect to avoid cruelty.
But when I see eg. a new born antelope crouching in the grass while the mother tries to distract a predator, I wonder why the system is designed so that beasts rip each other apart.
Why couldn't a Supreme Designer arrange things so that one species fed off only the dead of another?
What's the need for the savagery?
Does the Supreme Designer actually hate HIS creations?

(NB masculine gender used to be provocative . .lol)




THIRD FISHERMAN: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
FIRST FISHERMAN: Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.

William Shakespeare - Pericles act 2, sc. 1



I do not believe that my creator is callous, or 'hates' us.



Hi bogarde73,

Yes nature seems is cruel.
The competitive nature, of err, nature [and of our own circumstance], forces us to make choices [that we may not otherwise be motivated to make!].

bogarde73, when you die, all of the 'problems' which weigh upon your consciousness today, will be at an end.
Many are of the opinion, that the oblivion of death, will bring a sense of peace to them.
That is not an invitation to take your own life.
Just a reminder that own perceptions are all relative [to what we think we understand about the reality that we experience].


bogarde73,
We ourselves, do not need to be cruel to other creatures.
We can choose, to, not to be cruel to other creatures.

Is God a cruel being, to force us to be challenged and suffer ?



Proverbs 12:10
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.



Quote:
An extract from the "Lucifer Principle" by Howard BLOOM
........Unfortunately, these authors held a distorted view of pre-industrial reality. A pride of lions at their ease enjoys the kind of nature the radical environmentalists dreamed about. You can see the smiles on lions' faces as they lick their paws and stretch out on the ground side by side, clearly pleased with the comfort of each other's warmth. You can see the benevolence with which a mother keeps a cub from playfully tearing her tail apart. She lifts her huge paw and gently shoves the infant aside when his nipping becomes too painful. But nature has given these lion mothers only one way of feeding their children: the hunt. This afternoon, these peaceful creatures will tear a gazelle limb from limb. The panicked beast will try frantically to avoid the felines closing in on her, but they will break her neck and drag her across the plain still alive and kicking. Her eyes will be open and aware as her flesh is gashed and torn.

Suppose for a minute that lions were suddenly stricken with guilt about their feeding habits and swore off meat. What would they accomplish? They would starve themselves and their children. For they have been given only one option: to kill. Killing is an invention not of man but of nature.

Nature's amusements are cruel. A female sea turtle crawls painfully up the beach of a tropical island, dragging her bulk across the sand. Slowly she digs a nest with her hind flippers and lays her eggs. From those eggs come a thousand tiny, irresistible babies, digging out of the sand, blinking at the light for the first time, rapidly gaining their orientation from a genetically preprogrammed internal compass, then taking their first walk, a race toward the sea. As the infants scoot awkwardly across the beach, propelling themselves with flippers built for an entirely different task, sea birds who have been waiting for this feast swoop down to enjoy meal after high-protein meal. Of a thousand hatchlings, perhaps three will make it to the safety of the ocean waves. The birds are not sadistic creatures whose instincts have been twisted by an overdose of television. They're merely engaged in the same effort as the baby turtles the effort to survive. Hegel, the nineteenth century German philosopher, said that true tragedy occurs not when good battles evil, but when one good battles another. Nature has made that form of tragedy a basic law of her universe. She presents her children with a choice between death and death. She offers a carnivore the options of dying by starvation or killing for a meal.....

http://www.oocities.org/mickay_au/lucifer.htm





+++





Daniel 12:10
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.


Isaiah 48:10
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.


Revelation 21:7
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

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"....And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
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muso
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #8 - Dec 5th, 2013 at 11:00am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:37am:
I don't know what that means.

A non-interventionist God is one which doesn't interfere or intercede in any way. Prayers have no effect, and it's pointless to worship.
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muso
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #9 - Dec 5th, 2013 at 11:01am
 
UnSubRocky wrote on Dec 5th, 2013 at 2:50am:
Having had an out of body experience, I figured that religion is one big waste of time. Perhaps save for the social aspect. When you die, no matter what you have done, you are going to experience a type of bliss (free from the restraints of the human body). Spending time hoping that the man in the sky will forgive you for kissing Janie-Jane behind the shower block in year 7, is a waste of time.


Was yours at the Criterion too?
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UnSubRocky
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #10 - Dec 5th, 2013 at 3:10pm
 
muso wrote on Dec 5th, 2013 at 11:01am:
UnSubRocky wrote on Dec 5th, 2013 at 2:50am:
Having had an out of body experience, I figured that religion is one big waste of time. Perhaps save for the social aspect. When you die, no matter what you have done, you are going to experience a type of bliss (free from the restraints of the human body). Spending time hoping that the man in the sky will forgive you for kissing Janie-Jane behind the shower block in year 7, is a waste of time.


Was yours at the Criterion too?


It might as well have been. The reason why I nearly died was because of a mix of medication and alcohol.
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Fit of Absent Mindeness
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #11 - Dec 25th, 2013 at 11:14pm
 
I was raised in the church, but haven't gone to church in years.

I'm gay so it makes my choice easier - being threatened with heaven/hell didn't endear me to the religion.

I don't need a reason to be religious - my life is better off/happier without it.

I'm a good person/live a good life and don't need a book to tell me what I can/cannot do.
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Frances
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #12 - Dec 26th, 2013 at 12:18am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Nov 28th, 2013 at 10:22am:
Reasons for not being religious



There aren't any....
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Sure God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece.
 
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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #13 - Dec 30th, 2013 at 10:22am
 

I may be being a bit pendantic here.

imho, noone is supposed to be 'religious'
we are encouraged to be spritual.

There is no need to go to church every sunday.
There is a benefit in "doing unto others as you would have done unto yourself"
That does not just happen every sunday morning.

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Re: Reasons for not being religious
Reply #14 - Dec 30th, 2013 at 12:29pm
 
Fit of Absent Mindeness wrote on Dec 25th, 2013 at 11:14pm:
I was raised in the church, but haven't gone to church in years.

I'm gay so it makes my choice easier - being threatened with heaven/hell didn't endear me to the religion.



But, but, but,  .....heaven and hell don't exist!

[i.e. if you believed that they DID exist, your behaviour would prolly be different.
Correct ?  ]







Quote:
I don't need a reason to be religious - my life is better off/happier without it.


A lot of people feel that way.








Quote:
I'm a good person/live a good life and don't need a book to tell me what I can/cannot do.


A lot of people feel that way.




Men [and women] today....exalting themselves [displacing God, in God's temple]....as they are sitting the temple of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:4
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.



1 Corinthians 3:16
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?i
Me, i have been promised a 'new' temple, when this temple turns to dust.

John 14:2
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.


Lamentations 3:33
For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
34  To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,


Psalms 69:32
The humble shall see this, and be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33  For the LORD heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners.


Psalms 119:19
I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
...
54  Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.


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"....And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
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