alexeitorey ([info]alexeitorey) wrote in [info]fuckyoulist,
@ 2006-11-12 13:03:00
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Fuck Christianity

Christianity was flawed to begin with.  It is a single idea (discipleship of Jesus) that has evolved over time to suit the needs of believers; to claim that the old way was flawed but that the new way is not doesn't work.  No new stuff has come along, and the old stuff (the Bible, etc.) has to be dismissed most of the time (Skeptic's Annotated Bible).

Some writers dismiss atheism as a social trend.  They say that atheism didn't grow out of logic, but was a reaction to blah blah blah.  Therefore, they would have you think, atheism is outmoded.

Regardless who is an atheist or what reasons they have, I can still arrive at the conclusion that there is no God without the aid of other atheists.  A Christian couldn't do that without other Christians.  Atheism is not merely a social trend--it's an idea independent of society.  Atheism can sprout in any culture; a specific religion, like Christianity, cannot.


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*YAWN*
[info]tovasshi
2006-11-13 04:45 am UTC (link)
Oh for fuck's sake, get over it.

This "I am cool because I hate xtian" schlick is getting old. Every fucking Atheist I run into has this collective mentality that they cannot be a good atheist unless they bitch about Christianity. Same goes with Wiccans. Why do so many Atheists and Wiccan have nothing better to do than bitch about Christianity?

Why are they so obsessed by it?

There are worse things out there than a few Christians with an opinion.

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-13 06:48 am UTC (link)
Actually, it's not a schtick. I'm really honestly against religion. I'm only bitching about Christians right now because they're the ones in my life talking about why my beliefs are nonsense and not to be heard. Plus, I'm not obsessed--it's not an obsession to want beliefs that compete for control of your life to be tucked in for the big sleep.

Anyway, religion is a bad thing... look into it. Christians account for too much of the country, often with negative effects having more to do with patterned behavior masked by Bible verses--if the behavior was examined and the verses discarded, they could be shown how to live life without disturbing other people.

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]abbybba
2006-11-13 07:19 pm UTC (link)
Christianity was flawed to begin with.

I'm only bitching about Christians right now because they're the ones in my life talking about why my beliefs are nonsense and not to be heard.

so....what you're saying is that Christians are stupid for not acknowledging the superiority of your ill-thought out arguments to their beliefs.

well-played, man, well-played.

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-14 06:54 am UTC (link)
None of those things.

1) I'm talking about people saying atheism is a bad thing--Christianity says that it's a bad thing not to believe in God. The rest is politics (Christian Coalition versus Me and Mine in a word fight). How about we run the country without telling people it's bad not to believe in God?

2) Asking not to be censored or disparaged is not the same as asking someone to acknowledge the superiority of my arguments. Incidentally, my arguments are great--not at all as ill thought-out as the ones like, "this book says a million different contradicting things... it's the word of God, who knows all... so we'll go by it, only we'll pick the meaning for ourselves based on our social situation and the way we interpret the history of this book's changes... yeah, and we'll call what we come out with the 'truth.'"

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]abbybba
2006-11-15 08:25 am UTC (link)
1) no, it would appear that you are in fact talking about christianity sucking, not that your beliefs are under attack.

2) your arguments suck.
---you say that following a pacifist is a flawed idea from the get-go, without saying why.
---"to claim that the old way was flawed but that the new way is not doesn't work." yes it does, it's called social evolution and it happens constantly. open up your eyes.
---you cite an inherently biased source, which is the same as picking out what suits you and disregarding the rest. this, children, is what we call "hypocrisy."
---what writers dismiss atheism as a social trend?
---the phrase "god can't exist without the aid of atheists" is stupid. in fact, it's straight-up idiotic. what kind of a dumbass would say something so self-contradictory? jesus...
---you say christianity cannot sprout in other cultures, which is to say that christianity couldn't rise in any non-Roman empire nations. is this supposed to explain why 90%+ of scandinavia is lutheran? or why south america is predominantly catholic?

you're a biased asshole and are tiresome.

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]dyserenity
2006-11-17 04:38 am UTC (link)
I think [info]alexeitorey meant when it can't sprout in other cultures is that it can't come there without being brought there.

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Re: *YAWN*
[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-17 05:31 am UTC (link)
Don't just dismiss what I'm saying--I'm not a biased asshole, even if I am tiresome. I'm trying to be thoughtful here.

As for what you just said--no, you're wrong again.

I say that it's impossible to follow the person Jesus Christ because he's no longer living. It's impossible for anyone to know what he actually was and stood for at this point--no one alive (to my knowledge) knows him or knew him. Even if they did know him, like his disciples when he was alive, they could easily misinterpret him. For this reason, Christianity--following what people SAY Jesus is and was and stood for--is flawed.

Except that this is talking about a revision to what people consider the "true way." For contradicting things to have been said every which way over the last 2000 years about how exactly a Christian is supposed to follow Christ and then for people to take those contradicting things and extract for themselves what they think are the important points is not social evolution--it's choosing the truth. Christianity is made up every day by children and adults alike, because they have no idea what it is.

Any source can be said to have bias. It's each person's word against everyone else's--that's why we have debates about anything at all, because bias is inherent in trying to convey meaning to someone else when you communicate. Besides, all the Skeptic's Annotated Bible does is refer to all of the parts of the Bible that people would refuse to believe is even in it if they actually heard--like that stuff on slavery in Timothy they used to use in the South in the 1860's. And then the meaningful contradictions that people are supposed to overlook.

Alister McGrath (and to less an extent, Ravi Zacharias) refer to atheism in terms of social trends, using it as a ground to dismiss it. Zacharias would have you believe that Friedrich Nietzsche went insane because he was an atheist, although it is unlikely (his father suffered the same problem when Nietzsche was a boy)... and uses extensive quotations whose strength lies mostly in their grammatical wit (which is, beyond the power of cliché, superficial) to back his argument that atheism is totally irrational. It takes a considerably smaller leap of faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God, much less the whole of the Bible.

I never said "God can't exist without the aid of atheists." You're thinking of someone else.

I said that Christianity can't sprout unfostered. Someone has to go there and teach them Christianity; it is a system of ideas that has to be transmitted.

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Re: *YAWN*
(Anonymous)
2006-11-20 04:52 am UTC (link)
I think you misinterpreted him when you mentioned the phrase "god can't exist without the aid of atheists." He was writing about the fact that he could draw the conclusion that there was no god--and he could do so without the aid of other atheists. He wasn't saying that God wouldn't exist without atheists.

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[info]makichi
2006-11-13 04:56 am UTC (link)
Personally, I think that modern Christianity is flawed and that many people totally mis-interpret the Bible (which is too fucking old and tampered with to be taken seriously in the first place) in order to make it say what they want to say. However, I feel that there is a God. I also feel that many people have lost sight of what exactly that means. I worship God as I see fit and I don't need a Bible to tell me whats what. In that perception of the word, yes. Fuck Christians. They are the most insane, asanine, fucks I've ever seen in my life.

But hey, me being who I am, I say it's cool if you want to be an athiest, so long as you don't push it on people. Believe what you want. That's the joy of freedom, isn't it?

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[info]makichi
2006-11-13 04:58 am UTC (link)
Well, I have particularly bad wording, but that doesn't mean ALL Christians...

Just those absurd, bible-thumping lunatics who push their religion on you like a crack deal.

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[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-13 06:52 am UTC (link)
A for instance:

I would argue that the last pope was a bad person, considering the kinds of things he advocated in Africa and South America. Catholics hold the pope to be their authority figure--in a sense, they support him and hold him out as deserving reverence.

How can you call it good or even benign to be Catholic? (Reminds himself of Godwin's Law, even if it's a bad law, and refuses to compare Catholics to unwitting Nazis doing bad even though they are following because the ideas are so attractive).

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[info]makichi
2006-11-13 09:27 pm UTC (link)
That's great and all, but what does that have to do with what I said?

And... catholisism is not christianity... O.o...

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[info]makichi
2006-11-13 09:28 pm UTC (link)
Well, it is... but not exactly. They're different religions, not entirely different, but still different.

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[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-14 06:57 am UTC (link)
People should believe what they want, yes--but I say they should believe what they want unless what they end up believing in has something to do with supporting something that hurts other people.

From the Catholic perspective, they -are- the Christians. They teach their youth that the Catholic church was the very first church and that the Protestants are wrong to call themselves Christians.

Ask the pope himself.

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[info]makichi
2006-11-14 09:23 pm UTC (link)
I still don't see what the hell that has to do with my comment.

I didn't praise Catholisism. I said nothing about Catholisism. And please read my above comment:

"Well, it is... but not exactly. They're different religions, not entirely different, but still different."

Like said, I'm cool with it so long as it doesn't bother others. Right now, you're bothering me.



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[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-17 05:36 am UTC (link)
It has to do with your comment because you said, "only those Bible-thumping lunatics." What I'm trying to point out to you is that by simply being Christian, a person supports more than they may even be aware of supporting. By saying, "I'm Christian," someone gives Evangelicals statistics they can throw around in the media. By saying, "I'm Catholic," someone supports a Pope who supports abominations worldwide. When I said that Catholics see themselves as Christians, I was telling you that Catholicism is a sect of Christianity--not a different religion.

I don't mean to bother you, I just want to set the record straight about what I'm saying.

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[info]makichi
2006-11-18 02:30 am UTC (link)
But saying that means that just by follwing a religion, then you're affiliated with everyone in it, even when you don't want to be. That's just plain ignorant to say. Believe it or not, people are perfectly capable of taking this and that from whatever religion they want and forming their own way of practice. They don't have to be affiliated with certain figures in the church. They don't have to believe 99.9% of what the church says. Saying "I'm Christian" does not mean that you agree with or support even a fraction of what certain people in the religion do. And saying that someone is supporting something they aren't aware of supporting by simply follwing a religion is a shallow statement.

For example, I support gay people. If they want to get married, I say let them. But I still call myself a follower of Christ. Under your logic, that makes me a contradiction. According to your logic, because I consider myself a worshipper of God, I should automatically hate gay people. I'm sorry, but your argument just lumps people in to one big category simply by label. That's beyond ridiculous. There are too many variations of worship to be sprouted within the human mind for one generic label to be applicable.

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Stand for yourself, then, and avoid labels if you want to do no harm
[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-19 05:52 am UTC (link)
No, I'm not saying that you're affiliated with everyone who is part of a religion by claiming to follow the same religion. I'm saying that you support all of those things that the religion itself supports. If you say you are Christian, then you are saying you are a follower of Christ (which, as my original message details, would be a difficult thing to be). If you follow the Bible--the whole Bible, without choosing for yourself which parts you follow--then you're agreeing to a whole lot you probably aren't aware of. The example of Catholics actually works very well because by saying that you're Catholic, you agree to the rule of the Pope and everything he says as being through God.

Actually, the statement that people are frequently unaware of what they are supporting by claiming a label of religion is not shallow--I think you just said that because you needed to say something. Whether or not it's a deep statement or a shallow one doesn't matter. It's true.

I never said anything about gay people and worshipping God. Now, if you say you're Evangelical--then you most certainly are agreeing there are things about homosexuality you consider actually flat-out wrong. If that were the case (you claiming Evangelical Christian status), then you would either be supporting oppression of homosexuals wittingly or unwittingly; whether you knew it, or not. A lot of my "Southern Baptist" friends are gay and have no idea the kind of contradiction they live.

Yes, my argument is talking about labels and claims. By saying, "I believe in the truth of the Bible," a person can support a million things he has no idea he's supporting. As I said I wouldn't do earlier, it was the same thing with the Nazis and often with communists. Many members of the Communist Party had no idea they were supporting Stalin's pogroms--nonetheless, they supported them by supporting the Partei.

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Re: Stand for yourself, then, and avoid labels if you want to do no harm
[info]makichi
2006-11-19 03:58 pm UTC (link)
I'm afriad YOU'RE the one who has no idea how many contradictions they are living. I could waste my typing time pointing them all out, but no matter what, you're going to come back with an inane retort about how the whole world is wrong and you're right, saying you never said things I never said and whatnot, and ignoring my statements entirely.

Like said before, those are the kinds of people I hate... the sorts that misconstrue words in order to make things say what they want, and the sort who push thier ideas on you like a crack deal.

Get over yourself, my friend. I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish, but as they say... "It's easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar". If this were real life, this would be the point where I roll my eyes and walk away.

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Re: Stand for yourself, then, and avoid labels if you want to do no harm
[info]alexeitorey
2006-11-20 04:47 am UTC (link)
Well, I was reasonable. You sound like a very emotional person... or at least a person unable to separate emotion from her other thoughts. I'm not living any contradictions--I live out exactly what I say. To confirm your accusation that I say that I never said certain things--I never said that the whole world is wrong. I did, however, say that at least 33% of the world is wrong in its belief that it follows Jesus Christ, when clearly the man is dead and gone.

QED

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[info]kilaufeia
2006-11-14 06:31 am UTC (link)
Fuck people who take religion so seriously.

Let people believe what they want, and get on with your life. Not every Christian is judgemental. There's a small percentage who make the rest of us look bad.

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[info]anomagi
2006-12-24 03:24 pm UTC (link)
Everybody has a religion whether they want to admit it or not.

Stop complaining and criticizing someone else's religion just because you can't make ends meet in yours.

Otherwise I'm totally with kilaufeia here.

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