How do we know that Christians are Delusional?

Xingu wrote:

Listening to some of the anti-Christian rants makes me wonder if they are as bad as Creationist rants. Seems like, prior to Christ, Gods was born on Dec. 25 to virgins; there were many Trinities and full body resurrections happened all the time.

I don't doubt that Christianity is a blend of Jewish and pagan beliefs but it seems like an overkill by those trying to discredit Christianity.

I bet those December 25 virgin births were stretched and seemed implausible to even this viewer. That many coincidences from around the world is hardly likely to have happened or there may be a god up there. LOL

Your comment about SDA adherent was right on target; all my siblings are SDA members. That's where I learned that their church dogma was discriminatory, and they have very little tolerance for "breaking god's laws." Also, all my siblings are meat eaters, but the SDA is known to have the longest longevity for Americans because of the abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and meat. I married a Buddhist, and our mother was none to happy at our wedding. I've had many arguments with my siblings about religion and politics.

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Hmm, somehow I got interrupted when typing out my warning. I meant to also include that I don't think all of that film is accurate. In fact a lot of it is dramatic effect, much like what parts of it are preaching against. Check out their corrections page. Also there is a link to their sources and I plan to dig a lot deeper into the rest of the info. Still I could not help but like the first part in the way it does give a very logical (at least to me) explanation of how the myth began. That does make sense.

For the rest of it? I can tell you this for sure, if you don't pay your taxes, you will go to jail. <laugh> I really didn't like that part, and they throw in two former IRS agents like that is suppose to convince us. It almost makes it sounds like you could stop paying takes and they couldn't touch you.

I liked that part on dinosaurs too, I think this is a little more on that quote:

"Get this, I actually asked one of these guys, OK, Dinosaurs fossils - how does that fit into you scheme of life? Let me sit down and strap in. He said, "Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith." I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude. You believe that? "uh huh." Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. f---in' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha." [mimes God burying fossils] "I am God, I am a prankster." "I am killing Me." - Bill Hicks

Anyway, I felt from watching the movie linked in the first post some would appreciate part one of that movie.

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Nah....God wouldn't do that...I mean he is a loving God - not a trickster. The dinosaur bones are definitely a question that has come up and apparently a big controversy in the Christian faith. God created all animals. Just because believers considered animals to be what they knew...horses, dogs, cats...etc. Does not mean that God did not create the dinosaurs as well. They could have easily have been created at that time. Scripture clearly states that all amimals and man were created on the sixth day. There is also controversy on how long a day is. Is a day 24 hours? Not to God...his time is not our time. But I am a literalist. The God I believe in could create all he wanted to in 24 hours. There is also a question of the time line. Millions of years are said to have had passed before all that occured could have. The problem is that carbon dating is only correct up to thousands of years. Scientists had to find new ways of dating bones and fossils found they felt should have been dated further back such as millions of years.

Regardless - Christianity takes a lot of faith. Faith in things that are not seen and understood as normal or doable. To me - why would God do anything other than that which would confound the mind and cause us to think? He wants us to have faith. If you can see it...it is easy to believe. If it has to be clear and perfectly understood by the human brain - then what makes God any different than us?

And if you don't believe - that is okay. I do believe the one problem of Christianity is that they feel they have to bully or force others into believing. There is danger in that. Not only are you not following God's commands of loving others as you love yourself...but there is a danger of trying to add to scripture to either make it more believable or more terrible to scare others into belief. It is a terrible thing to be seperated from God for eternity. I do not want that...but I cannot make that decision for anyone - not even my own children. The fact is, is that our job as Christians is to love others, to share the Gospel - which is that God sent his Son to die for our sins, if we believe He died and was resurrected to redeem us and to make us children of his, and we are truly sorry for our sins then we are indeed redeemed.

We cannot force people to believe that we are right. We cannot expect them to always believe that either. I do believe that belief in the Gospel takes a tremendous amount of faith. Some people grow into it...others just cannot. But constantly bickering over who's right is not going to change anyone's mind. We love others as they are. If they come to a point where they desire to become Christians they will. If they do not - they do not - I cannot force them - as much as I would love for them to know and understand how lovely it is. That is just me.

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mismi, When the bible was translated from Hebrew to English, the word was "day." Otherwise, you have a conflict with "god rested on the 7th day." Consistency is important. During creation, the record says "on the first day..." - yet another inconsistency.

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Hamal wrote:

Still I could not help but like the first part in the way it does give a very logical (at least to me) explanation of how the myth began. That does make sense.

I thought the astrology linkage made a lot of sense as well, but star positions are verifiable. The Orion's Belt alignment with Sirius is something we can check. And the passing of 'ages' due to celestial declination can also be checked.

The references to astrological signs showing up in scripture are a lot more subjective. Religious texts are so vague that they can be used to justify almost anything (and frequently are).

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Rosborne,

I could not agree more. Another thing I tend to find troubling is when any source starts talking about mistranslations. I don't have any clue where I could get my hands on an original bible text, and seriously doubt I could even if it was available to some. Then you have to wonder how much was altered over time, or even destroyed given the weight something like this carries.

I too have read about the similarities of pagan religion to christianity, but I had never seen anyone make such a great link to astronomy before. For me that was new.

I completely agree that with the out right errors and opinions presented as facts in parts of this film, one should be very careful with this type of information and not swallow it whole so to say. Reading more on their site, they seem to say the same thing and that they hope people do not necessarily take this for absolute truth, but to seek their own answers.

I stumbled on this thread because like you I have been wondering if I should open up a little more to some of my family about why I think the way I do. I don't want to tell them they are wrong or delusional but I know that baggage well. Freeing my mind was one of the best things that happened to me, and when you care about someone you want to share that. It's not easy no matter how you approach it.

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mismi wrote:

I mean he is a loving God

This is the one thing I could never understand about Christians. They say their God is loving. But is wanting to rip fetuses out of a woman's belly and act of love? This is what the loving God wanted to do with the Sumarians in Hosea chapter 13 because they rebelled against him. This is less than what Saddam Hussein did to the Shiites when they rebelled against him. Yet Saddam Hussein is a monster for savagely putting down a rebellion and God is loving for wanting to kill fetuses.

In the end Christians answer this with excuses, trying to defend God's behavior. Oh, it's the OT, as if it doesn't mean much or God can do whatever he wants and we're not allowed to judge him.

No matter what is said it is an excuse for God's barbaric behavior. Christians latch on to a few verses of the NT and claim this is proof of God's love; He gave his only Son to save us all.

What nonsense. If the Bible says the only way to God is through Christ what about the other vast majority that don't believe in Christ? Is God going to cast them into Hell? Or into a void and never have anything to do with them?

If God is so all powerful and can make any rule he chooses than why not be a nice God? Why not say I have unconditional love for all humans and I don't care what your religious beliefs are? Why do you think I gave you a free will?

But that's not the way this loving God of the Bible behaves.

Quote:

Revelation 21:8
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

This is called love.

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Hamal wrote:

I stumbled on this thread because like you I have been wondering if I should open up a little more to some of my family about why I think the way I do. I don't want to tell them they are wrong or delusional but I know that baggage well. Freeing my mind was one of the best things that happened to me, and when you care about someone you want to share that. It's not easy no matter how you approach it.

Hi Hamal, I agree, it's a difficult conversation to approach people with. The original video I posted is very much "in your face" with its argument, but you can't fault the logic of its argument.

From what I've seen on this thread, it's clear that the approach the video takes is ineffective in making any impact on people who are caught in the delusion. Many people who responded simply ignored the arguments of the video. Others missed the point or started rationalizing again.

I found the video interesting not so much as a wake-up call to believers, but as a wake-up call to non-believers as to just how much we sugar-coat our own perception of some religious beliefs. By every other measure of rationality in modern society, strict religious dogmas are clearly delusional. But because so many people, including our loved ones, hold those beliefs, we withhold our normal standard of reason and look the other way in the face of their irrational beliefs. Because we don't want to call them delusional, we give it a pass. Even though by any other measure of reason, it's delusional.

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mismi40 wrote:

". . .he is a loving God - not a trickster."
"To me - why would God do anything other than that which would confound the mind and cause us to think?"

So, is your god a trickster, or isn't he?

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mismi wrote:

Regardless - Christianity takes a lot of faith. Faith in things that are not seen and understood as normal or doable. To me - why would God do anything other than that which would confound the mind and cause us to think? He wants us to have faith.

The reason you must have a lot of faith is if you use reason and logic you will see that the Bible is a lot of nonsense. You say God does not want us to think. We were put on earth for one reason only; to have faith in and praise God.

Seems like a waste of life if that's our only purpose. If we are to have faith only and not think why give us a brain that allows us to think and reason? Perhaps this is a trick God is playing on us; testing us to see if we use our brain rather than turn it off and have mindless faith.

You think so?