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Originally Posted by willravel
Because you offered no evidence, I had to try and guess at what you were talking about.
Religion doesn't cause the injustice, BUT it sure as hell facilitates it. Tell you what, why don't you name the worst crimes committed by atheists, then I'll list some made by theists. That would help me explain.
What about God killing millions of people for not believing in him? Was that a metaphor for getting to know yourself or being kind to strangers? What about flooding the planet? What about the slaughter of the former inhabitants of Jericho, except the young girls for the Israelites to keep for themselves ("Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.")?
This big guy in the sky killed, or caused to be killed, millions of innocent people. God ordered, or approved of, the murder of civilians, of little children, of helpless old people, defenseless women, prisoners of war, and even livestock. It tells us that God approved the instructions to soldiers to keep the virgins for yourselves. The biggest problem with the Bible, Torah and Qu'ran is that we have people claiming that not all of it should be taken literally and that it's more to give you a moral compass....but God is hardly a good moral compass by today's standards. So theists are stuck. Either they have to accept that the Bible is true and that the creator of the universe is a cold blooded killer, or (and much, much more often) they pick and choose, which is what I was talking about.
So I guess the question is: is god a murderer, or do you pick and choose what to believe?
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You've demonstrated quite clearly why you do not believe in Christianity. I do not think you have addressed the existence of a god or gods, however. You seem to be working under the assumption that if god exists, god must be as religion describes it. I don't think that is the case. If god exists, it is possible that god just set things in motion and then stepped back to observe. Science allows us to comprehend the rules of the universe, but not where they came from. It is theoretically possible that god built the universe and made it work according to the physical laws that we can study. That seems like it would be a lot easier than having to consciously think about every little thing that happens -- just program in some patterns of behavior and let the program run. I don't think science necessarily negates faith. I know several scientists who are extremely religious and view science as the tool to understand the universe the way god built it. I think that the real scientific method is to take something you believe could be true, make predictions based off of it, and then see if those predictions come true. If a religious person believes in god, prays to god to get through something, and then gets through it then they've used the scientific method to support the hypothesis that faith can help people through tough times. I'm agnostic myself because I don't believe in god exactly, but I do think it's possible that god exists. In response to an earlier point in this thread, I'm the same way about mythological or superstitious things. I don't really think vampires exist, for example, but I wouldn't be too surprised if I met one someday. I'd just be like, "Oh, so they *are* real..." (and then I'd probably die
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