ExChristian.Net -- encouraging ex-Christians - Latest Comments in What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Mandy — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:28:00 -0000

"Christians, when pushing their dogma, always point to(the beauty in) nature as proof for a creator."

Maybe we should ask a butterfly or a flower. Maybe they can testify that proof.

Sounds stupid doesn't it?

What most christians claim sounds stupid also.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

To Matt XOXOXO :Wink: — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 20:22:00 -0000

Matt: "I guess we can just say anything that happened before we were personally there to verify it just didn't happen."

Oh, come on now play fair. We can say that something "didn't happen", as easy as we can say something "did happen".

Now, how does one prove that Matt doesn't wear garters? Is it an automatic tie between, he does, and he doesn't?

Well, without a personal journal, newspaper clippings, or picture ads in playgirl, etc, many would say, there is just no evidence to believe that Matt actually does wear garters.

However, if one has "faith", well, then its not only possible that Matt wears garters, but many may just go ahead and just add that he wears Holy Garters given to him by a god.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

boomSLANG — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:43:00 -0000

Matt: I guess we can just say anything that happened before we were personally there to verify it just didn't happen.

Interestingly, you are perfectly free to do just that---although, it might make getting through school a little more challenging. But regardless, ask yourself---why have you never been asked such questions as, "Hey, do you believe in Abraham Lincoln?"..or, "Hey, do you believe the Monitor fought the Merrimac?"...? Why?... because those things are commonly accepted as having an referent in objective reality. Notwithstanding, as mentioned, you are still perfectly free to reject those ideas; those ideas are NOT being offered conditionally. In other words, you will not suffer bodily harm for the denial of those ideas, which, when compared to religion dogma, the latter is most certainly offered conditionally. Furthermore, there are no supernatural claims attached to either the life of Abe Lincoln, or the Battle of Hampton Roads---no spooks, no gouls, no talking vegetation..... no "strings attached". Do you see the difference now?

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:00:00 -0000

Matt said, "I guess we can just say anything that happened before we were personally there to verify it just didn't happen."

If what you mean by "anything" includes reports of floating ax heads, flying fiery chariots, the earth stopping in its rotation long enough to win a bloody battle, talking donkeys, talking bushes, talking snakes, virgin births, walking on water, un-dead zombie-gods levitating into outer space, etc., etc., etc... Well, based on things I learned in elementary and junior high school, stories with elements of magic that disregard the physical laws of nature are found in the myths, legends and fantasy section of the library.

History, I've noticed, generally doesn't include quite such colorfully embellished flights of fancy.

Did you even scan any of the information in those links, Matt? Or do you think you've "arrived" and have no need of learning more since attending Bible school?

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:00:00 -0000

I guess we can just say anything that happened before we were personally there to verify it just didn't happen. If you want to take that track it may be kind of ridiculous but at least it is consistent. If you do appeal to history to try to disprove Jesus existed, you can't play the "that didn't happen because we cannot verify your piece of information" card.

I would get into the "Matt is not a cross-dresser" debate but none of you are here to actually verify it so by your logic, that I have an agenda, etc, why would you believe me anyway?

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Kwaemon — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:12:00 -0000

What if everyone stopped believing in god?

The religious workers who do the living with religious teaching will have to find a new job.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

To Matt XOXOXO :Wink: — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:18:00 -0000

I hope someone wrote down that Matt isn't a cross-dresser today; else everyone is going to have to entertain the possibility for the next few thousand years, that Matt is a cross-dresser, until proof can be offered otherwise.

In a few thousand years, of course, someone will ask where all the documentation is to support the fact that Matt really wasn't a cross-dresser, and well, the lack of evidence - will prove that Matt is indeed a cross-dresser today.

So, Matt, are you wearing silk, lace, or hose? I like this pattern of thinking you have, highly imaginative, and anything is possible - do you wear garters also?

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

rickyusvi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:53:00 -0000

Matt wrote: “If it was all just a sham, by your logic that people should have written all this down in real time, surely someone wrote something down disputing the reality of the miracles, right?”

Not if there were no miracles, no disciples, no real-time writings, and no Jesus to dispute.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

AtheistToothFairy — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 01:14:00 -0000

Matt,

I was reading an article today by one of my favorite great 'thinkers', Robert G. Ingersoll.

This lengthy article by Ingersoll is on the topic of Superstition and was written way back in 1898.
But don't let the fact that it was written so long ago deter you from accepting his solid arguments, as most still apply to today's world we live in.

Within the article, he cites many reasons why superstitions have created many man-made myths, including Jesus, Satan and even witches, and why such superstitions throughout time have wreaked havoc upon humanity etc..

http://www.positiveatheism....

You'll need to sit back for awhile with this long article, but it's worth the time invested, and if his arguments don't get you questioning the validity of your bible, then nothing probably will.

ATF (who loved the line Ingersoll wrote, "If the Devil does not exist, the Christian creeds all crumble")

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:00:00 -0000

Thanks

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

AtheistToothFairy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:41:00 -0000

For Matt:
Here's a few links about Pontius Pilate and the trial of Jesus.

I also included some links that talk about the problems with Jesus, as portrayed in your bible accounts etc..

http://www.infidels.org/lib...

http://atheism.about.com/od...

http://www.atheistalliance....

http://www.geocities.com/in...

http://mwillett.org/atheism...

http://www.positiveatheism....

http://www.atheistwa.org/Re...

Enjoy,
ATF

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:07:00 -0000

Matt,

Also see The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Paperback).

Also of interest is The Formation of the New Testament Canon (2000) and Luke and Josephus (2000).

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:42:00 -0000

Matt:

The scientific method didn't exist 2,000 years ago. There are virtually no contemporary refutations of any of the myths of old. There are doubters and mockers of most of the old myths, but no scientifically critical refutations such as we might expect today. That just isn't the way people thought back then. It was a superstitious, magically thinking time. Even today, millions of people believe in the magical stories of Muhammad, Buddha, Joseph Smith, Big Foot, UFOs, a plethora of ridiculous unsupported urban legends, etc.

Perhaps this will help: Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels (1997)

Face it, people believe weird things. If and when you are willing to critically analyze why you are able to so easily dismiss the unfounded myths of other cultures, then you will understand why others can so easily dismiss the fantastic, evidence-lacking claims of the Jesus cult.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:13:00 -0000

Should have been spelled "sham"

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 12:12:00 -0000

Looks like I have a lot of reading to do. Thanks for the link.

I am always willing to learn more and find out where someone is coming from. I am also open to the truth. Can you give me two more pieces of information?

1 - The story of Pilate that doesn't jive with the Bible

2 - A reference to any piece of history of someone living within a generation of Jesus who denied his miracles actually happened. I am not talking about a Christian reference - as you say of course those would have an agenda. Show me any reference. I would like to know where it is at so I can read it for myself.

If it was all just a shame, by your logic that people should have written all this down in real time, surely someone wrote something down disputing the reality of the miracles, right?

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 04:48:00 -0000

@ATF: :-')

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

AtheistToothFairy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:31:00 -0000

Matt said...
>"Of course the early Christians had an agenda. John even states his agenda in John 20:31 - that Jesus did many miracles and he writes about them to help others believe it is true.
Does it invalidate something because it was written with an agenda? If it does then we can just ignore your comments as well. Right?"
----
Matt,

I think you missed my point Matt.

If one's 'agenda' is to deceive folks by making up a fictitious story about some Son-of-God walking on this earth, performing miracles, having a vast following, then dying and being brought back to life by the 'other' god, then surely one needs to make sure the story seems truthful.

Inserting such versus in the story (such as the one you speak about), are there to reassure the non-critical reader that the story is legit, much as the urban-legends we see in chain-emails also try to seem legit by providing the same type of assurances to the reader.
Such assurances would SEEM to offer confirmation of the story's validity, but in fact are only there to suck-in the reader and squelch any passing doubts they might have.

Think about what you are using to prove to me that the bible's agenda is worthy and valid.
If I wanted to suck-in more followers, it would make sense to put in versus about miracles and saying something like... "I'm telling everyone about these miracles so they can also believe to" etc..

If I asked you to sign over a blank check to me, would you sign it?
I doubt you would, for you have no reason to trust my agenda.

What if I said to you that god told me that you need to trust my agenda with your blank check, and I even showed you a letter from god to that effect?
The letter is even signed "CREATOR GOD YAWEH", in fancy official looking embossing.
Now would you sign that check over to me?
Why not Matt?

Yes indeed I have an agenda here.
My agenda is to make xtians like you, **THINK** for yourselves, and by doing so, have you seek proof for your blind faith, instead of just going with your FEELINGS and some lame apologetics.
You would be wise to question EVERYTHING you are told to believe, and yes, that would include anything anyone here would tell you also. The idea here is to use your BRAIN to discover what makes rational sense and stop believing in something because it makes you feel good or offers false assurances for some afterlife in heaven.

That said, I'm not out to start some fantastic legend, or even gather up a huge religious following, nor am I looking to control the human population, or offer them pie-in-sky rewards if they behave or worship some god I make up on a whim.

You should greatly ponder what the agenda might have been for the bible writers, if what they wrote down was nothing but falsehoods or just came from deluded and/or drugged minds.
What if your beliefs are unfounded and you discover like us ex-xtians have, that it's all been a huge LIE and there is no proof to a thinking mind that these stories are anymore than stories; that later became legends.

>1 - The disciples had jobs. Many left those jobs to travel with Jesus

I didn't mean to imply they didn't have jobs before they met this jesus, but that they were jobless while with him.
One thing is for sure, none of them could have been very good scribes if not one of them could bother writing down all the important stuff your jesus was saying for the three years while they were roaming around together.
One would think we'd see versus where jesus was telling someone to write something down for posterity, but I can't recall even one time jesus did this sort of thing...WHY NOT?

What I do want to know is how jesus and all these jobless disciples managed to buy food and clothing. Did your jesus just snap his fingers and presto....food suddenly appeared at every meal time, along with fresh clothing for the day?
Did he also use the snap-finger technique to make shelter appear to sleep in or did they beg for shelter in each town they entered.

In all the time jesus spent with these 12 men, surely they had plenty of time to talk while traveling all over, so why didn't anyone bother to write down things about his life that the bible is silent about. We know next to nothing about the time between his birth and when he was 12 and then nothing again from age 12 until age 30.
Surely he must have talked to these 12 men about those years, as they surely would have asked him about it during all the down-time they had together, right.

Why do we know so little about his father and mother. I would think most son's would tell stories about their parents, especially if their mom was a virgin when they were born.
The lack of information about his life should be a huge CLUE to a thinking mind, don't ya think Matt?

>I have no proof that Jesus existed? I don't have a birth certificate if that is what you mean. However, the existence of an actual historic man named Jesus in the first century who was crucified under Pilate, etc is nearly universally accepted. The disagreement is normally over who he was and not whether or not he existed.

I think the webmaster gave you a link that you would be WISE to read on this matter!!
FYI....If you read about this Pilate in secular history, you'll find the story about him and your Jesus just does NOT wash; as told by your bible book.
There is PLENTY wrong with the whole jesus story in your bible when compared to secular history...not to mention plenty in the OT as well that doesn't 'jive' either.
But don't bother reading anything outside your bible, because it might 'injure' your beliefs with the taste of reality and we can't have that, right Matt.

>Paul and Luke were highly educated. Matthew, as a Roman tax collector, probably had a decent education.

If this is true Matt, then there is NO EXCUSE as to why they didn't write what jesus said as it was happening....i.e. in real-time.
Surely the magical jesus could have provided them the materials to write his words down on, no?

The rest of your comments can be answered by the website you were already referred to, as well as several other sites, I might point out.

You have a HUGE HUGE job on your hands Matt, if you wish to try and prove your Jesus existed, especially one that had huge followings and performed great miracles, because there is NO HISTORY outside your bible to confirm any of this about any man named jesus back then.
It's virtually impossible for someone to be so very popular as your bible says your Jesus was, to go unnoticed by the historians of those days.
Someone with his claim-to-fame should have volumes written about his life, and yet, it's all strangely missing.
Perhaps the Devil burned all those records?

The silence from secular history of your Jesus Christ is quite DEAFENING, indeed !!!
That silence ALONE should be enough proof to the thinking mind that this story is nothing but a fable that became a legend in short order.
It's on the same order as legends like Hercules and Jupiter and the many other SUN GOD's that came before your sun god showed up.

ATF (who understands that FEELINGS are addictive and hard to let go of, when one is subjected to the reality of the world)

P.S to the WEBMASTER......

.:webmaster:. wrote:
"Atheisttoothfairy participates here, but it is not within his power to delete posts, as he is not the technical owner"
----
Ahhh shucks webmaster...You surely have ... 'Cut me to the quick'

Tell ya what though...I'll give you a buck for every wisdom tooth a xtian here donates to you.
I would think they would have little use for ummm, 'wisdom' teeth anyway [grin]

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:05:00 -0000

Matt,

You said, "Let me address atheisttoothfairy. Feel free to delete my posts if you like, it's your blog and not mine."

Atheisttoothfairy participates here, but it is not within his power to delete posts, as he is not the technical owner. So, that is why it appeared to me you were calling me atheisttoothfairy. :-')

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 21:42:00 -0000

When did I express my views on the age of the universe?

If anything written with an agenda is to be thrown out, I guess talking about anything with anyone is pretty much useless as all of us are coming to this conversation with agendas.

Have a great day.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

stronger now — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:19:00 -0000

SEO and fjell, well put!

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

fjell — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:16:00 -0000

Matt said: "There will never be enough evidence to please some people on just about anything."

Exactly, the way that the very sight of galaxies millions of light years away ought to be a pretty fair indication of the minimum age of the universe. It takes something as mind-numbing as religion to convince people to suspend their common sense.

fjell

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

SEO — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:06:00 -0000

Yep Matt,

I like a bit o’ evidence…untold hours of study...one thing building on the other….just the highlights….Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Steno, Hutton, Lyell, Darwin, Einstein.

In the opened-face of the evidence your god, as he stands is cruelly absent. Other than a book - pissed all over by man - he has left his mark no where.

Richard Dawkins said it the best: “The universe observed has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

You’ve had 500 years for your god or any god to show itself in the underlining of this universe. (It could have started wtih a geocentric theory).

To dismiss the evidence and to go on faith is intellectually retard.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:41:00 -0000

And by the way, I never said you were atheisttoothfairy. :)

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

Matt — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 16:41:00 -0000

I just noticed the "Sent in by Geoff" thing. Sorry about that.

People believing bleeding is good is not on the same category as believing a man existed or not. If it was just in the gospels you could contest it as biased but it is not. Jesus shows up in other non-Christian accounts as well. I guess you could just claim that Christians came back around and changed the words later to include Jesus or something like that. You can shoot holes in anything 2000 years old if you try hard enough. That is why ultimately it is going to take some faith.

No matter how you cut it, it comes down to a matter of faith. That is between you and God. There will never be enough evidence to please some people on just about anything.

I am also very well informed on what people said about the gospels for the first couple of hundred years AD and there is a good consensus on who wrote what. Some of it as not as clear as other parts but on the whole it is pretty good.

And no, I don't believe Smith found any golden tablets. But that doesn't have any bearing on whether you exist, I exist or God exists.

Re: What if everyone stopped believing in god? - Letters to the Webmaster

.:webmaster:. — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:27:00 -0000

First of all, I'm not Geoff. I’m also not Atheist Tooth Fairy. You obviously haven’t really examined any of this site at all, or that would have been plain.

Secondly, you said, "The existence of an actual historic man named Jesus in the first century who was crucified under Pilate, etc is nearly universally accepted."

That's simply not true. See Jesus Never Existed.

Regardless of whether or not Paul Bunyan actually existed or not, the superhuman legends associated with him are plainly false. Wouldn't you agree? Surely you don't believe Joseph Smith really had magic glasses and gold plates, do you? However, if you were to talk to a believing Mormon, he might say something similar to you about "universally accepted."

Universally accepted. That’s an interesting topic. In my studies of history, I found that it was once universally accepted that bleeding someone was therapeutic. I also remember that a geocentric earth was once universally accepted. In fact, there have been many, many things that were universally accepted only to later be found false. Universally accepted doesn’t mean much.

”The disciples had jobs. Many left those jobs to travel with Jesus.”

Really? And you know this because… Oh, I know. You know this because anonymously written documents that were circulating many decades after these supposedly magical events make reference to disciples with jobs. Got it.

No one knows who wrote any of the scrolls that ended up in the New Testament, except for several that are “universally accepted” to be authored by Paul. Paul was apparently educated, but the masses were not. None of the gospels were written by eye witnesses. You’ve been lied to on that one. I suggest you take an hour or so and watch the video presentation available on this site by Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus. Then, you might want to read his book: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.

As far as the so-called martyrdom of the supposed original disciples, there is no documented record of any of it. All of the stories are legendary.