@religion-is-a-mental-illness / religion-is-a-mental-illness.tumblr.com
"Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well. I'll repeat that: created sick, and then ordered to be well. However, let no one say there's no cure. Salvation is offered. Redemption indeed is promised at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties." -- Christopher Hitchens
"End up on a mechanical ventilator and we all know that one true believer who's anxious to preach about God's plan for you, or how this is Allah's will for you.
How believers manage to reconcile 'benevolence' and 'greatness' with human tragedy and catastrophe happens just falls short of a miracle in and of itself."
Your god is either imaginary of a full-blown fucking psychopath.
"Christians always say 'it's god's will' when something happens.
So, why pray to him? Are you asking him to change his all-knowing mind???"
Yes. Yes, they are.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
Believers think they have control over the ultimate power of the universe.
Follow up:
“Why is it that people who believe that everything happens according to ‘God’s’ plan still pray?”
In the Argument from Fine Tuning, believers claim that everything couldn’t be the way it is unless someone was in control of everything, setting things up and making it all just right..
This isn’t merely an argument - fallacious, naturally - that everything being as it is necessitates a creator god. It’s the plea of a scared child, terrified of a universe that’s indifferent to them and not keenly invested in tuning reality itself to their wishes.
"The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who believe they are doing God’s work.”
-- Punit Pania
“American Christians have this phrase they use. You can be having a regular, lucid conversation with them and all of a sudden you’ll hear ‘It’s God’s plan’.
And that means ‘I’m done thinking.’“
-- Reginald D. Hunter
“I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is it's sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
There’s no arrogance quite as grandiose as Xian humility.
“The whole problem of a god that is claimed to be omnipresent and omnipotent as well as ‘good’ is somewhat belied by its apparent need to create ‘evil,’ sickness and suffering, all the while watching it.
To say that this is some sort of plan in a ‘perfect’ creation is ridiculous.”
-- Robert Pratt
The “humility” of believing that the eternal master and creator of the universe seeks your counsel.
Prayer is backseat-godding.
One thing that's been very upsetting is that after my mom's recent heart attack, she keeps praising God for "sparing her life." I feel like that's the same as saying someone spared your life because they had a gun pointed at your head and didn't pull the trigger. I'll admit, a lot of things went right that night, we got extremely lucky and it's tempting to say someone or something was looking out for us. But doing so also means accepting that possibly a different somebody or something wanted her dead. How do I bring this up without absolutely crushing her?
You can't.
She was facing her own mortality and it scared her. So she's leaning into her god superstitions to alleviate that fear.
The most you'll be able to do is a quip. Something like "Is that the same god that gave you the heart attack in the first place?" or "so I guess it was god's plan for you to have that heart attack and then save you from it?" or "so why would he save you and not a 10 year old leukaemia patient?"
But even that will possibly come across as you being a jerk, because it'd be like saying that you prefer her god doesn't exist (rather than that it simply doesn't exist), and that she should have died (since she attributes her survival entirely to her god).
I think (one of) the most useful approaches as far as making a point would be to get everybody who was involved in her survival into her room to show what it took, that it wasn't mere god-magic. But that's probably unrealistic and she'd likely attribute it to her god working through them.
Honestly, I think this is one of those cases where it's best to thank the doctors, the nurses, the paramedics and anyone else involved in the events of that night, and to otherwise leave well enough alone.
Hey, man, I was reading you. You have fair points there. God is the most powerful and creator of hell.
But he also doesn't want people to go there. If he doesn't want them to, but doesn't stop them, how is this coherent? By the free will.
Because of that, it exist an angel who CHOSE not to follow God, because he wanted to be as powerful as him. It was a big fight and then he was expelled to the Hell. But that guy still wants followers as God has. Hence, that's the reason why he acts that way.
And the free will is the reason why THE PEOPLE STILL CAN CHOOSE to not be with God, hence, be tempted by the devil, hence, be in hell.
he also doesn't want people to go there.
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
You seem to be following a god you made up yourself. Cause it sure ain’t the Xian god of the bible.
If he didn't want people to go there, then people wouldn't go there. It wouldn't even exist. Your god created everything, including hell and Satan and the rules about how people are judged. You know, based on belief alone, not morality or good deeds.
Which means that, as devout Xians, Adolf Hitler and Jeffery Dahmer will be in heaven. Because of the way your god set up the world.
angels to humans, has free will
"Free will." You people bleat that, and yet it doesn't hold up. Is it "free will" alone that prevents you from flapping your arms and flying? Is that why you don't fly? What about regrowing a severed limb? Is it just because you choose not to?
You see the problem here, right? Your god (supposedly) limits us already in ways you do not perceive as violating free will. There are things that we cannot do that we can’t even imagine being capable of doing. It invented the ability to regrow limbs -- and then gave it to salamanders. Your god could have designed us such that we had free will, but we went to heaven. I mean, is your god all-powerful or not? Is it that it couldn't set things up that way, or that it didn't want to?
When you pin your entire argument on “free will” you’re saying that your god authorizes and condones all evil done using that free will.
If I spot one of your pedophile preachers or priests raping a child, and I can intervene and help, but I don’t, then I’m complicit. I’m authorizing and condoning the rape of that child.
Your god authorizes child rape every day. Your god is everywhere, can intervene, and does not. And your god prioritizes the free will of the pedophile priest over the free will of the child to not be raped. So, your god does not really value free will. Or it does, just not that of a helpless child crying desperately to the god that refuses to help them. Your god chooses the priest.
“They’ll be punished later,” you might say. Well, i’m sure that’s consolation to the child, but it’s weird that the Xian line of reasoning halts all empathy whatsoever for the child, and is entirely about protecting the cosmic entity rather than the mortal tiny human. Why is it that humans have to protect their gods, while the gods leave the humans to their own devices?
And anyway, no they won’t.
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.
Raping children does not put you in danger of eternal damnation. The god-believing, child raping priest will go to heaven. The child who grows up to realize god isn’t there will be tortured forever. Your god’s system is immoral.
A “good” god would prioritize the success and wellbeing of its creatures over its own narcissistic needs. But your god’s top three commandments are literally only about itself. It couldn’t spare two of those commandments to tell people not to rape, nor enslave each other. Its only unforgivable sin is only about its own hubris. You believers like to pretend that your god is like a parent. Except that parents put their needs behind those of the children. They sacrifice their own needs to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their children. Your criminal-neglect parent god leaves its children to starve, be raped and suffer in the world that it created. A world that is exactly as your god wanted it to be (by necessity, otherwise it’s not a god).
Every action your god does in the bible is to further its own needs, its selfish, conceited, narcissistic hunger for the applause of mere humans.
Never mind that your "free will" absolutist god has (supposedly) spent every moment from the beginning of time meddling in the affairs of humans. Your god killed millions in the bible because it didn't like them.
“But god is god, he can do anything he wants.” Including violate free will, evidently, eliminating free will as a defence of your god at all. You don’t get to have both.
Your god killed Onan for not wanting to impregnate his widowed sister in law. Your god brainwashed the Pharaoh to "harden his heart" in order to escalate the Egyptian-Israelite magic war, specifically to show his "signs" so that they would know him (stated explicitly in Exodus). Your god killed everybody in the world, violating their free will, except one incestuous family because of vague "iniquity." Your god violated the free will of the firstborn of Egypt by murdering them. For things they didn’t do. Your god spent pretty much the entire Old Testament violating the free will of people, from satisfying the blood-lust requests of those who came to see it, to waging its own war on humanity out of the spite of the first humans exercising who exercised their “free will.” (Even though they were childlike and absent any knowledge of right and wrong.)
The free will that it grants and then punishes for. “Follow me or be tortured for eternity.” “Here, have free will, now do exactly what I say or I’ll set you on fire.”
It’s not even possible to freely choose to follow your god when it has a constant gun to your head. For will to be truly free, there must be no duress whatsoever. And you’ve already made it clear, it’s not. Belief or torture. Choose one or the other, no other options, no ability to not play the game, forced to play this game... against your will. That is, even the parameters of your supposed “free will” choice aren’t free.
Well, I do choose. I choose neither. I choose not to play. Now what? Does your god execute one of the two limited options, or does it honor my free will choice not to play? Is my will free or not? Can your god impose specific limitations or not? If it can limit the choices to two specific outcomes without violating free will, then it can design us to know and accept your god (and therefore be destined for heaven like you claim your god wants for everyone) without violating free will.
If you want to present this “free will” argument, you’re going to have to get your god to take the threats off the table. Until then, this claim is nullified, because it is not, and cannot be, “free will” by definition.
Your god also violates free will to deliver its followers their petty prayer-wishes. If you pray, then you already don't believe your own silly story. Every time you pray for something - to pass a test, for patience, for help - you're asking the world to be shifted by your god in violation of free will. You're asking for your god's intervention.
Remember that the next time you pray for anything: know clearly and surely that you're refuting this story you're trying to spin.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
The bible says that your god is the potter who makes vessels unto honor or unto dishonor. That is, once again, your god makes us as believers and unbelievers, saved and damned, righteous or unrighteous. Your god is responsible.
You're saying the bible is wrong.
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Your bible literally says that your god sends people there and that your god predestined them to go there. You're saying the bible is wrong.
That bears repeating: you are saying that the bible is wrong, that what it says about predestining the holy before the foundation of the world, is false. Your god being the potter making us unto honor or dishonor is wrong.
Excellent. We need pay no further attention to the only book that claims your god exists at all. If it's wrong, then it's unreliable. (If it's "open to interpretation" then it's also unreliable. If "it's a metaphor" then it's... you guessed it... unreliable.)
an angel who CHOSE not to follow God
Did your god make this angel, knowing full well what would happen? Or did it not know? Is your god all-knowing or is it not? Again, your god must bear all the blame alone. Either it knew the result and is ultimately responsible, or it didn't and it's not a god and therefore not entitled to judge us about the human experience it can never know or understand. Choose. Which one is it? Is your god culpable or ignorant?
If you're going to lean completely into the free will thing, then you've already chosen "ignorant." Free will refutes omniscience. Your god knows what you will eat for lunch tomorrow - try to eat anything else. If you can, then your god is not omniscient. If you can't, you don't have free will.
If you're going to put all your eggs in the "free will" basket, then you're saying not only that your god doesn't know all, but it can't know all. It's disqualified from judging humans when it doesn't know what it's like to be one, what we feel, what we experience, what our lives are like.
Additionally, you’re accidentally saying that there is evil and sin in heaven. If iniquity is caused by free will, then the devil choosing to oppose god - you know, having been made that way by the potter - must mean that free will can be exercised in heaven, and thus evil exists there. If evil cannot exist there, then neither can free will. Ergo, the citizens of heaven are slaves without free will. If evil cannot exist there, then you’re making up nonsense about the “angel who chose not to follow god” to excuse your god creating that angel to fulfil a particular role. Can evil exist in heaven and thus the devil had free will? Or can evil not exist in heaven, and the devil just did what he was designed and predestined to do? Which will it be? Awkward...
(You’ve never thought any of this through, have you?)
hence, be tempted by the devil, hence, be in hell.
The same devil that your god made and won't destroy? Or can't. Again, your god is responsible for the continued existence of this devil. It could not exist unless your god wanted it to exist. Your god destroyed Sodom and turned a woman into salt, but it won't destroy its primary enemy? Can your god only do the really easy magicks?
If the devil can continue to exist without your god wishing it so, then the devil is more powerful than your god, and your god is a lesser creature not worthy of being called a "god".
Can your god not change the rules about how all of this functions in order to undermine the devil’s intentions? Or doesn't it want to? Yet again, this swings back around to your god being solely responsible. Unless, of course, the devil is more powerful than your god.
(Are you getting it yet? You can't have a god that is not responsible. it's either responsible or it's not a god. With all power comes all responsibility.)
But that guy still wants followers as God has.
Satan followers are Xians. I am not an Xian. Your imaginary enemy is no more real to me than your imaginary god. I don't follow Satan any more than I follow Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or Sauron. To follow the devil, you must believe in it. Atheists do not. Therefore, we cannot go to hell, since we aren't its followers.
But that's not good enough for your god is it? Your god needs belief and worship (by definition, it's not perfect, since perfect things cannot be deficient or in need of anything). Your god therefore condemns me anyway.
If non-believers are unwittingly followers of Satan by default, then that’s on your god for setting things up this way. Responsibility goes entirely to your god once again.
If I will go to hell, then you're lying. Or at least, making this garbage up as you go along and haven't figured out it doesn't work. If I will go to heaven, then your bible is wrong. Again. If I will go to neither, then I need do nothing, because nothing is at risk. I already expect to die after the one and only life I will ever live ends.
Which means, you have very big problems to solve in your mythology. Starting with the fact your mythology only works in a fandom and fictional universe I'm not a part of.
PEOPLE STILL CAN CHOOSE to not be with God
Use your free will to believe in Zeus. Go on. Or Quetzalcoatl. Just for a minute or two. Show me how it’s done. Go on, do it. I can name a dozen gods if you like, but here’s a list; any of them will do. Pick just one, any of them. Use your free will. Become a follower of Mbombo for five minutes. Or Chandra? Maybe Freya? You have free will, right? The free will to CHOOSE to be with a particular god. So, use it. Put up or shut up. Come on, do it.
Do it.
Do.
It.
Or is your argument so patently stupid, absurd and false that it refutes itself?
If you can't will yourself into sincerely believing in a (different) god, then you can shut up forever about "sending yourself to hell" or "CHOOSE to not be with God." If your god wanted to be known, it would be known. Then people could choose whether or not to follow it. But your "mysterious ways" god can't be bothered doing that.
Your god punishes people for not choosing something that can't be known. Your god is immoral. And fortunately, fictitious, since all of the above pretty much refutes your god out of existence.
Unless you can prove that you can choose to believe something you have no good reason to believe, then you're lying. You are lying to protect and defend your monster-god. And you know it. You know your god is immoral, you know your god is responsible for all of it, and you're lying your ass off, trying to rescue your faith.
Believers who think this fairytale horror story is true don’t have a free will choice, because as we saw earlier, they think the threat is real. And now we also know that you can’t just free will-choose to believe it’s true and the god is real in the first place.
It’s time you stopped making this argument, because with all of this taken together, it’s not only nullified, it’s completely incoherent.
We're not stupid, you know. We can tell when you don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. We're not gullible fools who will be placated by stupid, incoherent fables you invented about your imaginary god in a desperate attempt to fix the first set of stupid incoherent fables (the bible) that invented your god in the first place.
Yes, yes, yes, go off in a huff of “I’ll pray for you.” I’ll continue to think for you. One of us has to.
P.S. For a porn blog, you’re pretty sanctimonious. Reported.
Paster agrees that his god is the author of child rape, starvation and coronaviruses; surrenders “free will” apologetic.
“Mysterious ways” negates “god is good.” If you don’t know his goals or agenda, and you’re even saying that it can’t be known, how can you possibly declare that agenda to be “good”?
Even if he exists, doing good things doesn’t make him good. Supervillains do ostensibly good things all the time for reasons that serve their agenda. Lex Luthor has an entire foundation.
“Well, we just have to trust god.”
Do we just have to trust Lex Luthor? Or, assuming this god even existed at all, do we go “you know what, we’re going to put a pin in that for now, because we’re hearing some stuff that’s a bit concerning, so maybe you want to explain all the baby cancer and the coronaviruses and that time you drowned all the puppies in the world, you know, just for starters? Cause you’re acting all mysterious, and even your best buddies are saying we have no idea what you’re up to, and we’d just prefer a little transparency here. ‘k?”
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
The bible says that Lord, the “potter [who hath] power over the clay,” is responsible for it all. Everything is according to bible-god’s plan, and always has been, including our flaws and our “sins.”
