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Author Topic: The Big Religion/God Debate  (Read 37630 times)

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Online Triad

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #510 on: April 15, 2017, 06:57 PM »
Time to resurrect this thread.

Skimmed through half of the posts, everyone posted here either Christian or ex-Christian I think. Surprisingly everyone was mature. I hope it will remain mature whether you're Jew, Christian, Muslim or Atheist. So I will share some thoughts of mine as an ex-Muslim, maybe it can give more insight to irreligious people here and maybe Christians here can view it more objectively because it's not their religion. I won't go showing contradicting verses etc. I will try to approach directly to big topics.

Before I start, I don't have any problem with all Muslims, because there are a lot good Muslims. But I have problems with Islam. I believe almost all good Muslims would still be good people if they weren't Muslim, but there are a lot bad people that is bad because they're corrupted from certain aspects of Islam as a religion and culture. I might become harsh, so if you're Muslim and easily angered, perhaps just stop reading.

I am an apatheist. Agnostic apatheist to be exact. With our current knowledge, we seem pretty far from answer whether God exists or not, and to be fair existence of a God or a Godless universe won't have any impact on my daily life. I will just try to be a good person as much as I can and try to live a decent life. Some religious people would say I will go to hell if I won't be a believer. But if I be a good person and I will still go to hell because because I am not a believer, how could you expect me to believe such a God? And if I still go to heaven without believing in God, then what's the point? One of the reasons I left religion. To quote from Marcus Aurelius: "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

The reason I gave above also applies to other way around. Quran mentions non-Muslims will not be welcomed to Heaven. So it means y'all won't be allowed. So how could I believe in a religion that won't accept my good friends here?

Islam being not tolerant to non-heterosexual people is also another reason. For me any sexual relationship is fine as long as all involved people are consenting adults, or if they're younger than 18 their partner being at similar age. Because adult - below 18 relationship is just child abuse. And since it's hinted that Prophet Muhammad engaged in a sexual relationship with a prepubescent girl, this was another reason for me to leave religion. Some Muslim scholars tries to justifies pedophile with this. Obviously f@#! those guys. Some scholars would deny this ever happened. And some scholars would say back then it was considered normal and by time passes norms changed. This raises two questions. 1) We know how clearly wrong pedophilia is. A child can't consent and you pretty much ruin their childhood by having sex with them. Question is, how God didn't know? Why God did not warn Muhammad? 2) You accept norms changed for this. Why can't you accept norms changed for LGBT community? Not to mention, it happens between two consenting adults. People say it's not natural. By natural I guess they mean because reproduction is not possible. Well I don't think reproduction is possible with a prepubescent girl too, right? If you mean same sex relationship doesn't happen in animal kingdom, you're wrong. You know what's natural? Dolphins f@#!ing other male dolphins' blowhole(a literal blowjob LMAO), dolphins engaging in gang rape, or dolphins biting a fish's head off and using its dead body to masturbate. Dolphins are pretty much assholes, how people find them cute? ;D

Another topic is mandatory systemical rituals. Christians have going to church on Sunday, Muslims have 5 daily prayers. God is mentioned as an omni-everything being, so obviously God doesn't need those prayers, but people need it according to religion. If a God created me, I am more than glad because I existed thanks to God. But why I have to perform five prayers everyday? More importantly why is it mandatory? Doesn't that inner gladness more than enough for that? An irreligious perspective would say there are these systemical prayers because to make a bigger bond with religion, making that religion a bigger part of people's life so people won't leave religion easily. If there was something like "if you wanna show your gratitude to Allah, help your fellow men in worse conditions so they can enjoy and appreciate life like you." it would make more sense imo.

Another topic is afterlife. Why there's Hell? Why God needs to punish people. You might say then what, everyone should be allowed in a heaven? Yes. Yes even those f@#!ed up ones you're currently thinking. I want to ask, how someone can go bad? 1) Traumatic experience. If you didn't have that experience, maybe you would still remain as a good person. 2) Getting corrupted. Like how they manage to convince a person to be a suicide bomber with shits like greater good, fighting for a cause, rewarded in afterlife etc.  3) You're being f@#!ed up since the beginning. Like due to some biological, psychiatrical conditions, disorders you have. Like a sociopath killing someone without feeling guilty. So, 1 and 2 could be prevented by simply not experiencing those things. There are a lot good people with very good life, but they might go bad if unfortunate things happened to them. For 3, if they didn't have those conditions or disorders, they might be good people. Of course, some still don't go bad even after these, but that's not the point. My point is if those people didn't have one of those 3 things, they could go to heaven. So instead punishing those people with eternal torment, making them understand and truly regret and then proceed them to heaven sounds more like a God to me. God should be full of love and kindness not with anger and wrath.

Some people say if there's God, why there's evil in this world. I find this statement kinda stupid, it's the human doing those evil things not God. It is as stupid as blaming devil for the evil. If there's God, I would see this world is a place as we to form a personality etc. before moving on to heaven. With all good and bad experiences, you become who you are. And I think without bad things, we wouldn't appreciate good things. And if there's a heaven, I don't think it's a single place. I don't think there can be a single place perfect for everyone ever. I think people would have their own personal heavens. At first I thought like, so everyone in heaven is actually would be alone? That's kinda sad. But then when I thought again, for example if you have dead friend or family member, does that mean they're completely gone? No their influence on you will be with you always. Same stuff for everyone being in their personal heaven. Because wine rivers etc. sounds too cheesy to live for an eternity.

Sorry for long post. :D Hope I didn't bore you with my nonsense.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2017, 11:08 PM by Triad »



Offline TheWalrus

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #511 on: April 15, 2017, 08:07 PM »
Surprisingly long post on monotheism from an apatheist. ;)

I agree with most of your conclusions, I am a christian.  I do not adhere to all of the christian "mandatory rituals," I have my personal relationship with God, and that guides me through the rest of my life.  I try to honor the tenets of the biblical teachings, but even then I don't live all of them.  I don't believe that gay people will be looked at by God any differently than heterosexuals.  I don't believe in the hierarchy of organized religion, I go to church once a month or so.  Most would call me a nondenominational christian.  I like your quote from Marcus Aurelius.

Then you went here and completely lost me

Another topic is afterlife. Why there's Hell? Why God needs to punish people. You might say then what, everyone should be allowed in a heaven? Yes. Yes even those f@#!ed up ones you're currently thinking. I want to ask, how someone can go bad? 1) Traumatic experience. If you didn't have that experience, maybe you would still remain as a good person. 2) Getting corrupted. Like how they manage to convince a person to be a suicide bomber with shits like greater good, fighting for a cause, rewarded in afterlife etc.  3) You're being f@#!ed up since the beginning. Like due to some biological, psychiatrical conditions, disorders you have. Like a sociopath killing someone without feeling guilty. So, 1 and 2 could be prevented by simply not experiencing those things. There are a lot good people with very good life, but they might go bad if unfortunate things happened to them. For 3, if they didn't have those conditions or disorders, they might be good people. Of course, some still don't go bad even after these, but that's not the point. My point is if those people didn't have one of those 3 things, they could go to heaven. So instead punishing those people with eternal torment, making them understand and truly regret and then proceed them to heaven. God should be full of love and kindness not with anger and wrath.

Everyone has a choice, I don't agree with your cavalier take on morality.  You or I could blame our decisions on trauma or this or that, but at the end of the day, everyone makes decisions, and everyone is liable for them.

One of my beliefs is in an afterlife.  I don't know what it is or what I will call it, but the selfish and the evil will be punished, that much I am sure of.

Either that or its like this


Online Triad

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #512 on: April 15, 2017, 08:31 PM »
Surprisingly long post on monotheism from an apatheist. ;)
Ha. Yeah, I think I am not complete apatheist, like completely indifferent towards God and religion. My personal stance is like I mentioned, but since religion is big part of our world, can't really avoid discussing it. Enjoy discussing about it tho as long as it's a mature conversation. :)

Everyone has a choice, I don't agree with your cavalier take on morality.  You or I could blame our decisions on trauma or this or that, but at the end of the day, everyone makes decisions, and everyone is liable for them.

One of my beliefs is in an afterlife.  I don't know what it is or what I will call it, but the selfish and the evil will be punished, that much I am sure of.

Either that or its like this


Believe me I wish for an punishing afterlife for bad motherf@#!ers too, but I don't find a punishing omni-everything God so possible. Maybe I am wrong, who am I to conclude how an omni-everything entity would act anyway. :D



Offline HHC

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #513 on: April 15, 2017, 08:49 PM »
Interesting read Triad  :)

I never knew a person like you existed  ???
I think I'm not the only one in the west who feels that way.
To us, all, if not 99%, of Turkish ppl deny the Armenian genocide and atheism (or some form of agnosticism or doubt) either doesn't exist in the Muslim world or it's hanging at the end of a rope, or in other ways fearing for its life :-[

Are you a great exception or one of many?
How does your environment feel about this? Do they know you are an 'apatheist'? Is it common to call into question islamic beliefs? Is there social pressure to conform?
How do you feel about atheism? As in, outright denial of the existence of God?

I was also surprised to read your pedophilia argument, I'm used to see that argument in dumb anti-islam white ppl, I didn't think you would appeal to it. Although you use it in a different manner. Is that something you picked up online or is it something that really is an issue in theological debate?

I wish I could discuss your beliefs instead of all these 'worldly' matters, but they seem solid and well-thought out all the way. Can't really add anything to it.

Online Triad

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #514 on: April 15, 2017, 09:56 PM »
Interesting read Triad  :)

I never knew a person like you existed  ???
I think I'm not the only one in the west who feels that way.
To us, all, if not 99%, of Turkish ppl deny the Armenian genocide and atheism (or some form of agnosticism or doubt) either doesn't exist in the Muslim world or it's hanging at the end of a rope, or in other ways fearing for its life :-[
Turkey is an enigma. You can't say it's completely European or Asian.  You can't say, unfortunately after Erdoğan and people like him, it's secular or islamist. Anyway let me explain it briefly. Ottoman Empire was as Islamist was it could be. Around late 19th centuries, it started to westernize itself slowly. After WW1, Ottoman Empire was pretty much dead. After Independence War of Turkey, which lead by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Republic of Turkey founded. And boy, modernization skyrocketed. Secularism prevailed. Islamism started to lose power thanks to reforms etc. And want your perception of Turkey f@#!ed even more? Atatürk, the founding father of Turkey probably wasn't even Muslim. A quote from him:


Are you a great exception or one of many?
How does your environment feel about this? Do they know you are an 'apatheist'? Is it common to call into question islamic beliefs? Is there social pressure to conform?
How do you feel about atheism? As in, outright denial of the existence of God?
I am not an exception. In my high school class, which had around 30-32 ppl, there were at least 4 irreligious people beside me. Now about why there's that many irreligious people and to answer your other questions, it depends which part of Turkey you live. I am living in İzmir, and probably it is the most secular and liberal Muslim majority city in the world. Number of girls who don't wear headscarves, hijab etc. is maybe at least 6 times more than those who wear it, and it's because older population. If you look at certain age group like 15-25 maybe it's 20 times instead 6. I am not joking. Reason of this because İzmir considered as Kemalist stronghold. AKP, Erdoğan's party, never got majority of vote here. And when I said it's Muslim majority, probably 60% of it, (85% of it on 15-25 age group) is cultural Muslim. Cultural Muslim is those people who call themselves Muslim, and that's the only thing that connects them with Islam. My family and friends know I am apatheist. LGBT community also welcomed to Izmir. But is that mean all Turkey like that? Absolutely not. East of Turkey, which Kemalist don't get much vote which Erdoğan's AKP and pro-Kurdish HDP gets their vote is pretty conservative. Finding irreligious people there is almost impossible, girls mostly cover themselves, finding a girl wearing miniskirt is completely impossible. If two men holds hands and take a walk, they'll get beaten probably. Well at least they won't be thrown out from roofs like backwards Islamist countries. So East mostly has Sharia type of mindset without a Sharia. So yeah, Turkey is polarized as f@#!.

To get more information about Turkey and tomorrow's referendum, here's a good read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/Erdogans_Turkey

I was also surprised to read your pedophilia argument, I'm used to see that argument in dumb anti-islam white ppl, I didn't think you would appeal to it. Although you use it in a different manner. Is that something you picked up online or is it something that really is an issue in theological debate?
Well it's something that most likely happened. I rarely use that argument, I used it to show hypocrisy of not accepting change of norms for LGBT. Back then, just like in ancient Greek, pedophilia perhaps wasn't known to be an issue. My point was let's assume Muhammad didn't know, what about God? Maybe using this argument mostly became popular because some shitty "liberals" and their little knowledge about Islam. Like claiming Muhammad was a feminist. Because even if we ignore this  still it's a fact that he had multiple wives. This doesn't have anything to do with topic tho, mostly to criticize HuffPo.

...Armenian Genocide
What genocide? ??? ???

:D ;D
« Last Edit: April 15, 2017, 10:03 PM by Triad »



Offline HHC

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #515 on: April 15, 2017, 10:34 PM »
Yeah, tomorrows referendum may very well be the most important event since 9/11. Good luck  :-[

Offline TheKaren

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #516 on: April 15, 2017, 10:42 PM »
Triad, for the 1st time ever, someone on TUS said things about religion I 100% agree on.

However, I don't like to partake in these conversations much as they usually end up bad(agreed it's pretty mature here though).

2 things I want to quickly give my opinion on.

I believe the concept of heaven and hell are completely ridiculous, from what I was taught in Sunday school(before I left), they are both completely pointless, especially heaven

Heaven, some of the various theories i've heard are:

  • You never experience negative emotions
  • You never experience pain
  • You can have anything you ever wanted instantly
  • You can see your loved ones again

If that was true, it would be completely boring, having nothing to work towards, nothing bad to compare good to(will get to this later).

Hell, pretty much just the opposite of Heaven:

  • You never experience positive emotions
  • You never experience pleasure
  • You never get anything you want
  • You can never see your loved ones again, not even by imigination or memory

Again, if there is nothing to compare these negative things to, they will become neutral.



The 2nd thing I wanted to say is where you mentioned evil, which I believe is tied to several of the things you mentioned in the paragraph prior to this.

There is no good without bad, and no bad without good, we need both, or we would have neither, it's horrible to see people suffer, I get upset almost everyday thinking about bad things happening to good people, but at the same time that makes me treasure every waking moment of my life, and I strive to help people wherever I can, teach people anything they want to learn, just making someone smile, laugh, and feel happy and inspiring them, is about the greatest feeling possible, knowing you've made a positive impact in someone elses life.
« Last Edit: April 15, 2017, 11:04 PM by TheKomodo »

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #517 on: April 15, 2017, 10:57 PM »
"Everyone has a choice, I don't agree with your cavalier take on morality.  You or I could blame our decisions on trauma or this or that, but at the end of the day, everyone makes decisions, and everyone is liable for them."

IMO no and yes. I don't think we make freely willed choices; I'd say free will just doesn't exist, because it's not a coherent concept to begin with. The general assertion of free will--the folk or libertarian free will most people believe in--is that at least some of our thoughts are 'freely willed', i.e. that's how they arise in consciousness. But I'd argue 'freely' and 'willed' are mutually exclusive terms, like say, a square circle. A thought made freely would be one entirely uninfluenced by anything, with no prior causes, if that can be imagined. A thought that's willed would be one that's influenced by yourself; aspects of your memory, emotions, sensory input, etc. So the next thought I have can't be both. It's either willed, i.e. determined by me and the environment, or it's free in which case I had nothing to do with it. My 'will' is certainly involved in the next thought I think, but there's nothing free about my will at the present moment; every aspect of my personality and overall brain/mental state is how it is, and will contribute in a particular way to my next thought.

But yes we should hold people liable for what they do; if someone does something terrible, they should be condemned, imprisoned, etc, because these things actually help society in general, e.g. changing those people for the better, and keeping them away from the rest of us. This would be a good thing to do even if their actions were the result of trauma, upbringing, etc. But I don't think we should hold people liable in the sense of, for example, holding deep-seated anger towards them. Especially if this is based on the idea that they could have acted otherwise, since I think we can't act otherwise. Or wishing for eternal torture; this would just be punishment without an upside, in which case I wouldn't call it a moral form of punishment.

Offline Peja

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #518 on: April 15, 2017, 11:11 PM »
As long as i am not allowed to rape my cat and punch smart asses in their face, freedom is nothing but a bourgeois concept and therefore as obsolete as religion.

Offline Korydex

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #519 on: April 16, 2017, 05:19 AM »
"if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things on earth?"

Offline TheWalrus

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #520 on: April 16, 2017, 05:24 AM »
"if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order of things on earth?"

Offline Mega`Adnan

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #521 on: April 16, 2017, 05:43 AM »
@Triad
Muslims these days corrupted the Islam by adding their own self made rules. That's all. :(
I mean, they're following the self-made Islam.



Adnan, you are Mega, not Micro and not even faint  :D So fight till the end please.

Online Triad

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #522 on: April 16, 2017, 12:19 PM »
That's just excuses man. A better reason would be Islam in Middle East failed to modernize itself. Just compare İzmir and a Saudi city. People here are free to choose any belief, while in Saudi Arabia atheism is punished by death, along with many other things. Women here equal with men, in SA they're treated like second class citizens.  Religion is a choice here, but it's something that is forced on Saudi Arabia.

Sharia law is something that must be abolished immediately in order to Middle East countries to modernize itself. I am not saying they should get rid of Islam completely, but they should just take a look West Turkey and see how it's drastically better in many ways including human rights, even though both Turkey and Saudi Arabia populations are Muslim majority.



Online Sbaffo

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #523 on: April 16, 2017, 12:25 PM »
Porco dio

Offline Husk

Re: The Big Religion/God Debate
« Reply #524 on: April 16, 2017, 02:03 PM »
you want god? here is a god for you: