Theism, Religion and Lack thereof

So I sort of brought this up in the homosexuality thread and derailed the thread a bit so here's a real thread. Relevant quotes:

Pwnemon said:

God didn't necessarily put integration into our minds. While he knew it would happen, as he is a sovereign god, he gave us free will.

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Music Dragon said:

Free will is not logically compatible with God being almighty and knowing the consequences of everything, including His supposed creation of the world and of life. I could elaborate, but frankly, I've had to explain this so many times, it's not even fun any more. It's like fighting off an endless horde of zombies that just get up and shuffle clumsily towards you even after you've shot their heads off with a shotgun.

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Alraunne said:

Just because I'm somewhat annoyed that not only did you not seem to read anything else but you totally took Music Dragon's joke literally, I'm going to get all huffy at you and ask you some questions >:I

Do you believe that homosexuality is a bad thing and possibly also that homosexuals shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else? You sound like it but as mildly annoyed as I am I don't want to jump to conclusions. And if you do think this, why the hell should anyone who doesn't believe in this god have to listen to him when he doesn't even do anything about that whole evil in the world thing with his infinite godlike powers (which, by the way, would make him something of a douche I would think)? I'm honestly curious what a Christian's answer to this is and you're conveniently right here and stuff.

And also there should be some kind of Theism thread because usually when one of you guys shows up, ignores the entire thread and says something dumb it goes in the direction I'm trying to take it right now (sorry guys). Things might actually heat up in there instead of the same old thing happening in this thread over and over.

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Pwnemon said:

Firstly, of course it wouldn't be logically compatible. That would be the point of there being a God. If we could understand it, it wouldn't be very godlike anymore.

Secondly, God created the world with no evil. But since he gave humans free will, we screwed it up. It's sort like a teen rebelling against a parent and doing drugs. God let us do what we wanted since he loved us enough to give us free will, but we have to suffer the consequences. Or, if you prefer, it's like kids playing four square and God is the ace, except instead of being a jerk and changing the rules when it suits him he actually has to stick himself with the original ones he made.

Thirdly, homos can have the same rights as anyone else. But like I said earlier, this includes the right to screw up, and they will eventually have to suffer the consequences.

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Saith said:

Just gonna say that one interpretation of the Leviticus quote thingy is that, due to Judaism being sexist, being gay is considered an insult.

Basically, a man owns his wife, so if he shags a guy, he's insulting him. Because he's dominating his fellow Jew. So it's more of a 'being gay is bad because asserting your authority on a guy, so your treating him like a slave or a woman. This is bad because you should be nice to jews'.
Christianity ran with it.

It's sort like a teen rebelling against a parent and doing drugs. God let us do what we wanted since he loved us enough to give us free will, but we have to suffer the consequences.

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Soooooooo God is like that chavvy mum in a tracksuit two sizes smaller than her, even if she wasn't pregnant again, arguing with the dad who's 'wigga'ing with his crew, over a cigarette, while their two year old boy with pierced ears is playing in the middle of the road?

Or, ummmm, if I lock my dog in my kitchen when I've been cooking Christmas dinner four six hours and then kick it when I'm shocked that it ruined the food?

Firstly, of course it wouldn't be logically compatible. That would be the point of there being a God. If we could understand it, it wouldn't be very godlike anymore.

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That's retarded, by the way. God's incompatible with free will, therefore he must exist?
Seriously, logic isn't a 'thing'. It's a thought process. It's the action of validating or figuring out one concept using another proven concept.
A god couldn't defy logic, because

instead of being a jerk and changing the rules when it suits him he actually has to stick himself with the original ones he made.

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I couldn't have put it better myself.
I would type more more, but I wasn't planning to type more than a line, and oh my god 'who's line is it anyway' is on Dave, awesome.

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Alraunne said:

I was referring to the hundreds of children who are starving, practically born with AIDS, innocent children who are allowed to be raised by abusive and/or neglectful parents... Big businesses whose activities affect people who are entirely unrelated to them at all... Not just douchebags who get themselves hurt. Care to explain why he lets that go on, while still remaining something worth being worshipped? If I believed a god existed at all I sure wouldn't worship the one who allows children to starve and be beaten while having the capability to stop it.

But if you're just saying that the first humans who did evil brought evil into the world and fucked it up for everybody else and god can't intervene without taking away our free will or whatever... Why do you want to believe in something like that? Is it not horrible thinking you were born to face consequences for something you didn't even do? You don't have to believe that's true just because you grew up being told that, you know. Use that free will of yours.

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↑ this wasn't addressed by the person I was addressing, I am still interested in this one

on the nature of heaven and souls

Pwnemon said:

I shall take the theist argument *shot* and say that animals don't have souls. Why? Because God created man in his image, but not animals. In that way, only man would have a soul. Animals would not.

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Alraunne said:

So are there animals in heaven? Unless I wasn't myself any more and/or was being mind-controlled after I died and ended up in heaven, I'd be pretty unhappy if there were no animals in heaven. And you're supposed to feel nothing but happiness in heaven, right?

When I was still a theist this was my argument for animals having souls (that is, when I was really little; I realize now it's a silly argument that could be applied to almost anything but it's something to think about) I want animals in my heaven, dammit! And you kinda need a soul to get in am I right? And if my soul was hacked into or whatever to only be in the "happy" mode despite what's up there, well, I don't really appreciate that idea and I'd much rather just keep myself intact.

But since I'm not a theist, then no, I do not think they do, just like us and anything else. I do think they're pretty damn smart though.

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Saith said:

Butbutbut do women have souls?
I mean, he created man in his image, right?
He created women in man's image. Or something.

Damn technicalities!

e: Also, which man specifically is in his image? 'Cause we all look different.

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Alraunne said:

ACTUALLY GUYS DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS. I just remembered this.

Sorry if this video was posted in this thread already, but it's very relevant.

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Pwnemon said:

Alruanne, while I am no practiced theologist, all I could assume is that you would be happy in heaven without being forced to be. I mean, if you spend your time with an all-powerful God, he could do anything to make you happy, including animals. Having a soul would have no link on whether you could be in heaven, just whether you could have a relation with God.

Saith, man (Adam) was made in God's image, then woman (Eve) was taken and made directly from man. So women would as well have souls. Also, that does not mean physical image, the actual translation is closer to the word likeness.

We need a theism thread.

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Saith said:

So if it's not physical image, then why can't animals?

If animals and man ('adam') came directly from god, then you're implying that women are lower down on the scale than animals, as they came from man.

So: God--->Animals
God--->Man--->Woman

And yes, I'm being purposefully literal, because if you believe in Adam and Eve, you can't take parts of the Bible as symbolic.

e: Even if it's not image, if it's likeness, it still only applies to men. You may have been referencing Irenaeus(sp?), but even he says that no one has a soul, that we only get souls once we've been dickish enough.

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Pwnemon said:

Saith, God never made animals in his image. He made them on the fifth day, man on the sixth. They are in a totally separate class. It would be like saying bread is worse than wheat sheaves, since one takes two steps and one takes one.

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Saith said:

I dunno, I think he was pretty tired by the sixth day, judging that he had to rest on the seventh.

And I'm not saying anything about value, just purity. Men (and animals) are closer to god than women, as women came from Adam's ribs.

So, using your analogy, wheat is closer to the Earth than flour. Wheat is alive. Flour is not.

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Pwnemon said:

Firstly, Saith, animals may be purer than women, but would you rather play with plastic and wires or a DS? Purity =/= value. Also, God didn't get tired on the sixth day, he's a God. He just rested to give humans a precedent.

Secondly, Alraunne, I checked that video just now. At least the first ~2 and a half minutes. Firstly, just because a laptop and a Gameboy have a lot of similar features doesn't mean they function in nearly the same way. Secondly, he got the theology behind humans and animals wrong. God did create us with a better brain, one in his image, and to be a master over everything else on the Earth, dogs included. Plus, scientific studies show that only humans and dolphins have sex for fun, as a side note.

Music Dragon, stop the flaming.

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Alraunne said:

Then you totally missed the rest where he discusses how vague the idea of a soul is and how it would possibly work in the real world, when you get one and how it goes, which ties into whether or not animals should/would have one if souls even existed. One good question you either ignored or just barely missed was, "Why create something that can think and feel in the first place if you only intend to utterly destroy it and leave no trace of it?" That sounds pretty malevolent, which relates back to something I said in another thread you didn't bother with. I recommend you either watch the rest, or gtfo.

Music Dragon is hardly flaming, he's just warning us that we're never going to get through to you. You won't either but I'm having fun.

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Saith said:

But I don't care about whether a DS has a soul. My point wasn't that purity is better, but that women are further from god than animals, according to the bible.

Also, god resting on the seventh day, just 'cause, is kinda illogical.
It's not hard because he's a god. He's a god because he created the universe, even though he rested for one day. But it wasn't 'cause he was tired, it's cause he's a god.

It's sorta like circular logic.

Either way, christianwise, animals are closer to god than women, therefore have more of a right to a soul.

As I said before, ages ago, there was a vote to decide whether women had souls, so as the idea of women having souls was created after everything biblical was written, your automatic stance is that women don't matter. That's it, you can't argue with it. You really can't. 'Course, nowadays, you'd be biased.
Bitches don't know real Christian values.

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There you have it, folks. Some things to think about and start us off. Refer to this thread whenever some theist shows up after this Pwnemon guy gives up, etc

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

I see this thread, and it is gooooood.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

gods are jerks. the ancient bastards knew this.

kids these day.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Alraunne said:

There you have it, folks. Some things to think about and start us off. Refer to this thread whenever some theist shows up after this Pwnemon guy gives up, etc

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... you mean me?
I would argue, but it's extremely hard to do it when you have almost all of TCoD breathing down your neck. I've tried.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Sage Noctowl said:

I would argue, but it's extremely hard to do it when you have almost all of TCoD breathing down your neck. I've tried.

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as one of the other forumites (can't remember which, I think it might have been Eevee) put it once; if you have good points then there's no reason to feel so pressured.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Leafpool said:

as one of the other forumites (can't remember which, I think it might have been Eevee) put it once; if you have good points then there's no reason to feel so pressured.

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But aren't twenty brains better than one?
(Note: I don't have the actual number, so I stole one from a different thread.)
Darn it, now we're debating about debating.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Leafpool said:

as one of the other forumites (can't remember which, I think it might have been Eevee) put it once; if you have good points then there's no reason to feel so pressured.

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Trust me, I learned in Debate Class, rhetoric is much more powerful than Logic.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

so you think you'll filibuster your way through an online debate. sorry, kid, there are no time restrictions.

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Pwnemon said:

Trust me, I learned in Debate Class, rhetoric is much more powerful than Logic.

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Apparently, since logic doesn't seem to get through to you folks at all most of the time...


And I don't really know much about you at all, Sage Noctowl. You've been here for a while and seem like an okay person so I won't be all snarky at you if you want to bring up a good point or something. Pwnemon just kind of annoyed me for some reason that night so that's why I was on his case. His avatar is super adorable though now so I might lay off the snark since I'll forever picture him as a cute Gliscoritar. Maybe.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

...so how do we start?
About my debating: I tend to try to avoid touchy spots, and end up cracking jokes that make me look stupid. Like a winnie-the-pooh quote I used when joking around about 'the law of gravitivity', even though I know that gravitation is only called a law beacuse it is told and not explained.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

waitwaitwait a minute hold up

Pwnemon said:

God didn't necessarily put integration into our minds. While he knew it would happen, as he is a sovereign god, he gave us free will.

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are you trying to imply that integration is a sin?

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

sreservoir said:

so you think you'll filibuster your way through an online debate. sorry, kid, there are no time restrictions.

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No, exactly what I wanted to say is I could never filibuster.

Anywho, now that I'm done explaining why it's pointless to write what I'm about to write, I will answer the question Alruanne wanted answered. Firstly, that all happens because of man's sin. I thought you came from a religious family so I wouldn't have tp finish this thought, but this is where Jesus enters stage right, God's perfect solution to save us without violating free will. If I chose to believe in Him and his Son and renounce Adam's mistake, I can spend eternal life with him in Heaven. Otherwise, I will have to suffer consequences for my sin.

EDIT: Course not, not everything made by man is a sin. Otherwise I would be very sad. I was just trying to say it wasn't necessarily God's idea, as he allowed Israel to keep slaves.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

and that would be a baseless idea.

EDIT oh hey when'd I become a butterfree?

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Also, Saith, as I just noticed your new quote.

Just because women are "further" from God doesn't mean they're less entitled to souls than animals. God made both, but not in the same likeness. One was designed to have a soul, one wasn't. Simple as that, and I refuse to think up an analogy as I'm tired.

In regards to your second point of the votes for women's souls, did gravity not exist before Newton discovered it?

Thirdly, your circular logic chain is disrupted because Genesis / John 1:1 says God was around before the universe.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

So god just lets those poor children go on being screwed because they don't know about Jesus, then? Is being told about Jesus supposed to magically help? What about the times when it doesn't? I don't think it will magically cure the AIDS they were allowed to be born with because of original sin or whatever the term for it is. Life's too unfair for me to just believe in a benevolent god. I know all about the original sin thing and how Jesus is supposed to un-screw us. I'm mostly asking just to see how people might explain it.

Another question I'd like to bring up...
What happens to people who live their entire lives without ever being told a thing about Christianity? (you may see what's coming with this one, but before I go on I want input first)

edit some moar: Yes, gravity existed before Newton discovered it. What if that vote decided women didn't have souls, though? One was an inevitable, eventual discovery and the other is a decision that could have gone two ways. I would imagine the situation being similar to the debate of whether or not animals have souls, only much more heated, because while whether or not animals had souls wasn't "set in stone", it would be for women because of that vote. There would still be the general consensus that they don't, even though they might, and it would never change, I think, because people don't let go of their old beliefs long enough to really consider it.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Dang. Actually, that is a pretty tough question. All I can say is I don't know and that's why it's the duty of Christians to try and spread the good news everywhere.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Gravity is provable.
You don't need a vote to decide whether things go down.

However, as no one's proven the existence of a soul, saying that animals don't have them is just as senseless as saying women don't have souls.
You say animals don't have souls because Man was made in god's likeness. If you're gonna be that literal, then so am I. Nowhere does it say that Jesus wasn't a velociraptor women were made in god's likeness. Women were made in man's likeness. Put it this way: the grandmother theoretically makes only a quarter of the grandchild's gene pool. Therefore, the grandchild's genes are an even more diluted form of the grandmother's than the mother's.
The child is in the parent's likeness, not the grandparent's.

In this case, purity does matter, as the whole point of man having a soul is that we're in god's image. If the woman is in man's image, then she wouldn't have soul.

You can only have one soul, Eve was made from a tiny part of Adam, would she have some of his soul? I'm pretty sure no one believes that you can divide the soul.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

Saith said:

You can only have one soul, Eve was made from a tiny part of Adam, would she have some of his soul? I'm pretty sure no one believes that you can divide the soul.

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Hypothetically, the same way a soul is made when a sperm fertilizes an egg, I'd think... Only it's some kind of asexual reproduction thing? Or maybe god just manually gave her one. Hypothetically.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

I don't understand why the child inherits the father's sins. Why do we have to be born damned because our ancestors (in the Christian's mind, Adam and Eve) did something they weren't supposed to do?

If God wanted to punish Adam and Eve, then I suppose He might have had the right to do so. But there is no good reason, outside of pure sadism, that God should punish us as well. It's blackmail, and Jesus is more like the carrot on a stick before us than anything.

Re: The to-be short lived theism thread

On the contrary, man was made in God's likeness, and woman was made from an asexual reproduction of man. Which means it would be the same. While obviously women aren't the same as men in body structure, neither are men the same as God in that aspect. However, their spiritual structure would be the same.

Sin physically deformed Adam and Eve. Literally, it destroyed their bodies, making them able to die. This, like most other defects (Susceptibility to cancer, brittle bones) was passed down.