Seems like god left someone out of his plan eh? Or is this actually part of a more sinister plan? Or maybe, just maybe, god forgot about them?

Whatever the answer might be, it’s safe to say that the god most people are worshipping is an underachiever. As I was looking at this photo, I was wondering. Is the child in heaven or in hell? I guess we can all assume that the child probably had no proper education and did not even know how to read and write, let alone have a proper religion. god’s plan for him was to place him in the womb of an african woman, so that he’ll grow up to starve to death, after which he will burn in hell for eternity, for not having accepted “insert a random word depending on your choice of faith” as his saviour. It is no wonder why blind faith is so important in religion, it’s the only thing left for them to depend on.

I feel good when I do good. I feel bad when I do bad. That is my religion. – Abraham Lincoln

Believing in Jesus is to sacrifice the life you have today in hope there will be eternal life somewhere somehow. But what we make of our lives is not a gift to god. We don’t owe it to anyone in particular. Instead, what we do in our lifetime is our responsibility to Man. We are not going to be judged by which invisible imaginary friend we believe in but what we leave behind for our children. Do we leave behind a peaceful world where they will be free to grow up in, or do we leave behind a world divided by the various sects of religion, fighting to destroy one another. 

It amazes me still when I think about the vast number of people who think that religion represents peace, love and tolerance. In a perverse way, it is peaceful, loving and tolerant only towards people who agree with them. This pattern repeats itself throughout all religions past and present. Gallileo Gallilei, the father of modern science was sentenced to house arrest by the Church and his writings were burnt, all for telling us that the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way round. What great irony that he was a Roman Catholic himself. 

Always remember, every soul you harvest in the name of god’s Kingdom, is another nail in Man’s coffin. If you unfortunately is a man of faith, the least you can do is to keep it to yourself, and spare the rest.

We would be 1500 years ahead if it hadn’t been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best minds at the stake

DUBLIN – After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children.

The 2,600-page report painted the most detailed and damning portrait yet of church-administered abuse in a country grown weary of revelations about child molestation by priests.

The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.

Wednesday’s five-volume report on the probe — which was resisted byCatholic religious orders — concluded that church officials shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy.

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

Victims of the abuse, who are now in their 50s to 80s, lobbied long and hard for an official investigation. They say that for all its incredible detail, the report doesn’t nail down what really matters — the names of their abusers.

“I do genuinely believe that it would have been a further step towards our healing if our abusers had been named and shamed,” said Christine Buckley, 62, who spent the first 18 years of her life in a Dublin orphanage where children were forced to manufacture rosaries — and were humiliated, beaten and raped whether they achieved their quota or not.

The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.

The Christian Brothers, which ran several boys’ institutions deemed to have harbored serial child molesters and sadists on their staff, insisted it had cooperated fully with the probe. The order successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

The Christian Brothers’ leader in Ireland, Brother Kevin Mullan, said the organization had been right to keep names secret because “perhaps we had doubts about some of the allegations.”

“But on the other hand, I’d have to say that at this stage, we have no interest in protecting people who were perpetrators of abuse,” Mullan said, vowing to “cooperate fully with any investigation or any civil authority seeking to explore those matters.”

Buckley, who said she was abused at an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy, which ran several refuges for girls where the report documented chronic brutality, said the religious orders for years branded the victims as money-seeking liars — and were incapable of admitting their guilt today.

She criticized Mullan for suggesting that “today, having read the report, he doesn’t mind if the abusers are named and shamed. Isn’t that a little bit late for us?”

The report found that molestation and rape were “endemic” in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

“In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. … Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body,” the report said. “Personal and family denigration was widespread.”

Ireland’s myriad religious orders, much like their mother church, have been devastated by 15 years of scandals involving past cover-ups of abusers in their ranks.

The Christian Brothers have withdrawn from running several schools that still bear their name and the order has had few recruits in Ireland in the past two decades. Other orders are down to a handful of members, and their bases are closer to nursing homes than active missions.

“Most of these orders will literally die out in Ireland within the next generation or so,” said Michael Kelly, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper in Dublin. “Many of them are already in wind-up mode. They lack the confidence even to seek new vocations (recruits), due to the stigma associated with their members’ shocking, scandalous behavior.”

The Irish government, which in 1999 apologized for its role in permitting decades of abuse and established the commission to nail down the full truth of the matter, has tried to use money to bring closure to the victims.

A government-appointed panel has paid 12,000 survivors of the schools, orphanages and other church-run residences an average of $90,000 each — on condition they surrender their right to sue either the church or state. About 2,000 more claims are pending. Irish Catholic leaders cut a controversial deal with the government in 2001 that capped the church’s contribution at $175 million — a fraction of the final cost.

Some victims emphasized, even as they began thumbing through the report, that nothing — not even criminal convictions of their long-ago tormentors — will ever put right their psychological wounds and make their nightmares go away.

Tom Sweeney, who spent five years in two Christian Brothers-run institutions where he was placed for truancy, says he suffered sexual abuse and beatings. He also has bitter memories about more everyday humiliations — such as being forced to wrap his urine-stained sheets around his neck and parade in front of other children when he’d wet his bed.

“It’s something you’ll never forget, the way you lived in these industrial schools,” he said

We all know that under the veil of love and tolerance that religion preaches, it’s most damning contribution to mankind is the widespread indoctrination and the drilling of religion thoughts by both its leaders and parents. Young parents today have set up blogs in the name of their toddlers who do not even have the ability to say ‘mum’ yet seems to grasp the knowledge of the cosmic and god, extremely well. They know for sure who he is, what he wants and what we are suppose to do in his name. None of them understand that whichever religion you subscribe to, is basically an accident of time and place. 

Not only are children mentally abused, but physically too. Perhaps you might say that these people do not represent the church of god. But the catholic church knew learnt of these sinister acts way back in the 1930s. So what did these faithful, god-fearing people decide to do? Hide. Just like how god is hiding between all the gaps in science today. Even today, the exact names of the abusers are being withheld. And this is why I will never have respect for religion, not a single bit. For god doesn’t do evil because there is no god. The trouble lies with the men with god.

I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. – Susan. B Anthony

Me,”Hmm, Heaven? And holy shit God you exist”

God,” OF COURSE I DO! WHO DO YOU THINK CREATED YOU?”

Me,” Alright man, chillax God.”

God,” NO! I can’t chill. I’m here to judge you and you shall go to hell!”

Me,” Ok. I know I used to not believe in you but I guess there’s a way I can make it up right?”

God,” No, for not believing in me, you go to Hell.”

Me,” Oh C’mon God. How would I know you existed if you didn’t leave any evidence behind?”

God,” If I did, it wouldn’t be called faith right?”

Me,” So you would rather me not using my brain to think?”

God,” No, but you still should have known it’s your fault!”

Me,” Ok, what about all those nonsense quotes that you wrote in whichever holy book you wrote?”

God,” Those weren’t nonsense 2000 years ago. How would I have know that humans would progress so quickly”

Me,” Anyway God, just before I go to Hell I have a few questions for you. Why do you have to kill so many people? Including children”

God,” I’m God, I can do anything I like. Do I even need to explain to you?

Me,” But everyone who knows that you exist says you are the most merciful and kind creature around.”

God,” I am!”

Me,” But you kill thousands of innocent people, and so do your followers. And they go to heaven and I, hell?”

God,” Yes, I am merciful to all those who believe in me of course. Why should I give a shit about those who don’t give a shit about me?”

Me,” Ok. I guess it’s too late to change my mind now? I promise I’ll be good and sing songs to praise and worship you. I’ll even sacrifice all my Sunday sleep-ins just to go to Church and give money for them to waste it.”

God,” It’s too late, my child.”

Me,” I’M YOUR SON! YOU ARE SENDING YOUR OWN SON TO HELL?

God,” If I can send my REAL Son to death on Earth, what do you think?”

Me,” HOLY SHIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTT!!!!! I’M SORRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY”

Me,” Hello Charles, George, Benjamin, Albert, Mahatma, Napoleon, Abraham, Sigmund! It’s a shame great minds think alike, and make the same stupid mistake of using their brains too much eh?”

The 2 pictures above summarised the difference between Christianity and Atheism nicely. I might be biased so take what I’m going to say with a pinch of salt. 

Atheism is NOT the belief that nothing happened to nothing. It is not even a belief to begin with. All that Athesits and the Agnostics are saying is that we can use evolution to explain the diversity of life. However, we do not know how life started. Science does not have an answer to the origin of life. Therefore, it is not the belief that nothing happened to nothing. It is just simply saying “I don’t know” We don’t know because we have no proof. What religion does is that it replaces an unknown with another unknown – that of the supernatural. Nothing was magically rearranged, we just don’t know. Ironically, magic has been religion’s forte and now it has been labelled upon the atheist. Take magic out of religion and you will probably have nothing left.

On the other hand, other than the word zombie used to describe Jesus, I don’t think that whatever said about Christianity is false. Jesus rose from the dead. Zombies rise from the dead too. That just creates the possibility that IF there exist a Man named Jesus and IF he was really the Son of God and IF he truly managed to resurrect himself after dying on the cross, he COULD be a zombie. Maybe you can enlighten me if you are a Christian.

Anyway, I would like to give you this hypothetical scenario. Let’s say one day God called you on your mobile and told you that if you were willing to be tortured and die a horrific death, your reward would be eternal bliss in Heaven alongside the one and only Sky Daddy, what would you do? I’m sure all of us will consider his offer carefully and some of us will take up his offer. We are always reminded that God is kind and merciful because he sent his only Son to die for us on the cross. But does it qualify as a sacrifice if he knew he would be resurrected? Dear God, you could have just told any primitive Man walking on Earth and he would gladly ‘sacrifice’ himself. There’s really no need to trouble your Son. And because you sent your Son and impregnated a virgin woman, now there are different groups of people who worship you and Virgin Mary fighting each other. Not an idea generated by a supreme being I presume.

One of the most memorable line in the Bible must be that from John 3:16 – For God did not send his only Son to the World to condemn the World but to save the World. That is just a very nice way of saying – For God sent his only Son to the World to save those who believe in him, no matter how much they sinned. Only to condemn those, no matter how pure they are, to eternal suffering. 

Since the Bible and the Church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? – Anonymous

People have been complaining that some of the entries are too wordy. I apologise and I’ll try to come up with a Q and A page for the general discussions that you may see or come across. So please look out for that. 

People always see the apparition of  Jesus or Virgin Mary on cloths, toasts, paintings etc. This definitely beats any apparition that I’ve seen so far. I wonder why no one bothered checking their dogs, to be more specific the underside of their dogs. You may just discover Jesus hiding there, and it’s actually true that he is EVERYWHERE. I gotta admit this, including your dog’s ass. Or maybe, just maybe, the dog is trying to say “Religion my ass” Come to think of it, animals (other than humans) are pretty smart creatures. We don’t see dogs praying, or cats going berserk on Sundays, they just live their lives.

Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. – Ronnie Snow

For believers, this must look very familiar. When you pray, you often thank God for something that he gave you, and then proceed to pray for more. At this juncture, it seems that the almighty God can is benevolent, merciful and can do no wrong. God will grant you a pay rise, good grades, everlasting relationship, good health, a new car, basically everything you want, if you work hard enough and pray hard enough.

Now let’s go back to the idea that God is almighty and wise and powerful. He created all of us in his own image, and has a plan for all of us – The Divine Plan. Apparently, you can get him to change his divine plan by praying. Here lies 2 problems. 1) Why call it the divine plan when it can be changed by any Tom, Dick or Harry who prays? 2) If the plan can’t be changed, why pray in the first place? So the next time you pray, bear in mind these two questions. The act of praying itself supports the fact that God is neither almighty nor wise. If he is, his plan would be so flawless that you wouldn’t need to pray in the first place.

The next problem with a God who has a divine plan for everyone is this. His divine plan is flawed because it shows that he is unjust and downright evil. If God has a divine plan for everyone, does disabilities count? Surely it would be unfair for a child to be born blind or deaf just because “God has a special plan for him” What about starving African children? What’s God’s plan for them? To starve and die? What about people who were born in the wrong places? For Christians, imagine yourself born in Iraq and for Muslims, imagine yourself born in the United States. Isn’t it very unfair to you, that God in line with his divine plan, plans that you born in a place where the ‘wrong’ God is preached? Thus his plan for you would be to burn in Hell forever. What are his divine plans for intelligent human beings with great contribution to mankind. Thomas Edison is an atheist, who has more than 1000 inventions to his name and is most famous for inventing the lightbulb. The very same one used by everyone in every household, church, mosque and places of worship today. What is his reward? Hell.

Thus, there can only be two conclusions.

1) There is no God. This reason is relatively simple, rational and logical. Once you apply “there is no God” to all the cases mentioned above, everything makes sense.

2) There is a God, but he is not almighty, wise, caring, loving, benevolent in anyway. If you apply this reasoning to all the cases mentioned above, everything will make sense too. Which just begs me to ask. Why call him God? And why in the world do you pray to him?

Many will say that there is evil and injustice in the World today because God gave us free will and people have misused it. This sounds kind of funny to me because apparently, God gave us “free will” but if we choose not to worship him, we’ll burn in Hell forever. 

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. – Gene Roddenberry

The original note posted was:

It saddens me so immensely to see people fleeing from Christ not because they don’t have enough “scientific evidence” or because the concept of religion upsets them… but because self-proclaimed Christians act like the complete opposite of Christ— partaking in cults and various “God hates [fill in the blank]” movements… instead of speaking into people’s lives about the message of God’s LOVE. Jesus spent His life from beginning to end showing the world how much God loved them and what they had to do to be closer to God, and how to glorify Him. If only more people knew that Christianity has everything to do with love, and nothing to do with brainwashing and hate.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us” – 1 John 4:7-12.

Source: http://kellylove.tumblr.com/post/97737347/jesus-is-love

Below are some of the main points of our argument. I’ll try my best to organise them so that it all makes sense and please note that my responses are in RED.

What is Christ?

We don’t decide what is Christ, the Bible tells us that Jesus loves us and that we should love others in the same way. We are to hate the sin, not the sinner.  

Alot of pple also don’t understand why Christians are always out there inviting others to church trying to get others to convertk. they go, “why can’t Christians just live & let live without having to convert anyone? how does it benefit them? can’t they be like <insert other religion> who is pretty much peace-loving and don’t force their beliefs upon others. I wld say think of it this way – in a way we as Christians don’t really get to benefit anything in the physical sense when someone else converts. but think of it as chancing upon this miraculous fountain of youth – the water is sparkling clean and once you drink it, it just completely refreshes & rejuvenates you.

Wouldn’t you want to share this piece of good news & joy with your loved ones and friends, or even, the whole world? good news aren’t meant to be kept inside, overflowing joy bubbling over causes one to want to share it with others. that’s why. (although i do conceed that the way some Christians go about too forcefully may result in a backlash, and this is what alot of non/pre-believers are unhappy about)

1) People ‘flee’ from Christ not because there are not enough scientific evidence, but because scientific evidences prove that the exist of God is almost impossible

2) If there is a God, he definitely does not love people.

3) Yes people are put off by Christian movements, most of the movements are inspired by words in the Bible. Yet, this is not the main reason. The main reason is because rational people know that there is no God, at least not the one that religion portrays.

4) The Bible is full of contradictions, false miracles and the tyranny of God. Deuteronomy 22:13-21-God demands we kill brides who are not virgins.
Most Christians here are peace loving I agree, can’t speak for the fundamentalists though. The fact is religion is false and dangerous, without even converting anyone.

5) While you think it is “good news” and refreshes you, rational people thinks that it deludes and divide.

Can you explain the following: If there is a God, he definitely does not love people? And why you think ‘religion is false & dangerous’, and that it ‘deludes & divides’? Also, how do rational people know that there is no God? what kind of God do they think he is (assuming there is one) if he is not the one religion portrays ?

He does not love people because I cannot bring myself to believe that while he cares about some poeple, the children of Africa are starving and dying from all kinds of diseases. Not to mention the Pope then goes there to sell the ridiculous idea that condoms helps the spread of aids. I cannot believe that God cares about the millions of Jews of gypsies who died under Hitler, half the population of Cambodia was wiped out under Pol Pot. Elisabeth Fritzl who was trapped by her own father and raped throughout a 24yr ordeal. Imagine the number of prayers she must have said. In the Bible, God destroyed everything and everyone in a flood, including innocent children.

He also demands that we kill all brides who are not virgins, all teenagers who are disobedient. He tested Abraham’s obedience by asking him to kill his own Son. If God appeared in front of me and ask me to kill a stranger, I would not do it. Coincidentally, obedience is the same excuse used by Nazi war criminals during the Nuremburg trials. And also the trial of Duch now in Cambodia.

Reigion is false, therefore it deludes. It’s a great and romantic idea to believe that created us and then died for us. According to the Bible, the world was created 6000 years ago in 6 days, totally impossible. The Earth was flat. Noah miraculously managed to cage all animals on Earth. I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfy or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah’s Ark. Evolution taught us that all animals, including Man are not made, just evolved. And many more. To believe that any Religion is true is thus delusional.

Religion is dangerous and divides because it gives people the wrong information. It teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the World because the Bible can tell us everything we know. It affects the people of Africa when they think that condoms are useless. Imagine if all scientists today stop working and researching and credit everything to God. Religion divides because most of the time, your religion is based on your family or country you were born in. You are then taught to believe that your religion is the correct one and therefore others are false. Think about it if you were born in Iraq, you would have a different God.

IF there is a God, he is certainly beyond our imagination, and he certainly would not care about us. The idea of a God is so absurd, ridiculous and far-fetched that if there is one, we wouldn’t know. It says alot when many religion today preaches a God that has human like qualities. It not because God created man in his image. It is because on the first day, Man created God.

The issue on suffering which you have brought up is a long withstanding argument, just like many other arguments made by atheists. I can only attempt to answer it with our understanding of suffering.

There is suffering because we live in a fallen world, which is the consequence of sin; not necessarily the sin of the individual who suffers, but sin in the history of Man. 

God gave us free will, we were not created as robots that automatically love Him and are perfect. With this free will, we can make the choice of doing good or evil. Yes, God allows us to make mistakes. Not so that we will suffer the consequences and He can then say “told you so” but so that we can learn from our mistakes and grow stronger from where we fell. God did not create people like Fritzl and Hitler as evil people. People make their own choices.

What you brought up about the Holocaust is exactly what I was trying to bring up in posting this note. It is not religion itself that deludes or divides, it is the people who misuse faith and attribute their acts wrongly in the name of religion. Very often it is not religion itself that destroys, but really people behind these religions who claim to be doing what their gods told them to do.

Why do you say that it was impossible to create the world in 6 days? Is it humanely impossible? Or supernaturally impossible? I do not have factual answers about Noah’s ark, because I have not done any in-depth studies on it. But you should read this if you’re interested: http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Noahs-Ark-A-Feasibility-Study,4605,226.aspx Many species of animals which we see today were not in existence back in those days. Noah only needed to bring the ‘parent kinds’ of each species to repopulate the earth.

I accept your argument that God did not created evil people. But my argument was that God does not love us. If you refer back to what I said, people can become evil and do evil things. But if God loves us, then at least spare us from those evil people. Even if he can’t, at leaststop the Pope from making ridiculous speaches in Africa. If he can’t, he could at least feed the poor children in Africa. That is the least he could do. Religion tells us that God loves us and if you believe and pray, your prayers will be answered. We all know that no matter what we pray for and who we pray to, the rate of sucess is 50-50. And if your prayers for good grades get answered while the prayers of poor Africans are not, what does it say about God?

Religion does not destroy? If everyone follows the Bible today, everyone will be stoning each other to death. You do not seem to have an explanation to why God demands absolute obedience. And gets jealous when we work on a wrong day, pray to a wrong God, or simply do not believe.

Well if you believe that the world was created in 6 days 6000 years ago, that just shows how religion can be delusional. We have found fossils dated millions of years back. We know that the world today, and human beings took millions of years to evolve, and wasn’t just created.

I’ve been to that site before and it’s quite funny that they tell you how dinosaurs are fitted into the Ark. I understand that the population of animals today is different back then, but the World was already extremely diversified during that time. Could Noah have gone all the way to down under to take a few Kangaroos and Koala Bears. And how did get all of the to mate?

All you need are 2 animals who do not find each other attractive and the experiment will fail. Also, you do not seem to have an answer why God had to kill everyone? Including babies and children? Surely they are too young to even know.

Talking about “free will”, the definition of free will is 1)The ability or discretion to choose; free choice or/and 2) Philosophy the belief that human behaviour is an expression of personal choice and is not determined by physical forces, Fate, or God. What kind of a free will do we get, when we are taught that we are born sinners. And that we will go to Hell just by not believing in God. It seems that God is say,” Look, I gave you free will, do anything you want, good or evil. Just make sure you believe in me, if not hell awaits you.” To me, this is the greatest insult to free will.

God could probably have made us all mindless, programmed robots, but he didn’t. why? cos he is not a dictator but a loving God. iif and when one day we come around and decide that we want to believe & we want to love him, the love we have is then REAL and the joy both God and us derive frm this will be a gazillion, billion times better & more real & precious then if we love only cos we were programmed to do so. 
We choose our own beliefs, and our own thoughts, and all this will ultimately lead to what we want to do with our life. God doesn’t predestine any of our lives – He only knows the future & what we’re gonna do before we do it.

About the different religions in different countries, i conceed that if we were in another country, i probably might not come to know of Christianity as i do now. but Christian missionaries are always on the go to all parts of the world to spread the Word, hence the chances for someone in a non-Christian country to hear of Christianity & accept is always there. even in the most tribal and rural of lands, missionaries have trekked there to spread the Gospel, and results hav always been astounding.

As for Noah’s ark – according to the Bible, no one actually needed to go scour for all the animals. the animals actually came to Noah – i mean, c’mon, if God tasked Noah with this mammoth task, wldn’t God use abit of his supernatural power to help Noah out.

you see, the thing abt God is that – if we can understand him with our limited human knowledge, then he is not God afterall. it is like how ants can never understand what it is like to b human -cos they’re in a 2D world whereas we are in a 3D world. One question, Eric – you think that religion is dangerous and deludes, but to many it is actually a source of hope among other things. what then do you think is one’s meaning in life without religion? what are we on Earth for? that one day we die and disppear into dust? I wld lik to clarify here that you’re speaking against all religions? or just Christianity? cos many wld wanna say that Christianity is not a religion per se but a relationship with God.

I’m against all religion=) Just so happen that I used to be a Christian and you are a Christian. Haha.

1) My parents will not kill me if I do not respect them. I think that respect is earned, not automatic. For you, your respect for God is automatic because you have been brought up to believe that he is real.

2)Has it ever occur to you that missionaries go to places where in general people are uneducated and living conditions are bad? And most importantly of all, none of them has any strong blind faith to start with. Why is it that missionaries seldom go to Iraq, Afganistan, Iran? If your God is true and powerful, surely you can convert them as well. Yet, it is fact that religion targets 3 main groups, the young/uneducated, weak, and the desperate.

3) If God is so powerful, why did he have to create a flood and ask Noah to build an Ark in the first place? Why not just laser everything he wants dead? And my question about why he had to kill innocent children is still unanswered.

4) That is the main reason why people created God in the first place. Because people have no scientific knowledge of anything during our primitive days. As we progress, the things that we need to use God to explain becomes lesser and lesser. And God has become to God of gaps, hiding in any gaps of Science. It used to be the church thinks that the World is flat. After that is proven false, now the church thinks that evolution is false. God is desperately seeking new hideouts, and the hideouts are running out.

5) Morphine is a source of hope for people in pain. Yes it relieves pain. Does it mean that we shld administer morphine to everyone in pain? No. Are you happier when you are drunk? Yes. Should you get drunk everytime you are unhappy. No.

6) Contrary to popular beliefs, atheists do not lead a meaningless life. We treasure every minute and second, not wasting a single moment, because we know that we only have one chance at life. Unlike religious folks, we have no heaven, no hell, no devils, no angels and no eternity, just one shot at life. You don’t need God to make you a better man, you need yourself. I live for the people I love, for the world which I think is beautiful. And I hope that I can make people around me realise that the world can be beautiful, without heaven and hell. And when I finally die and return to Earth, just before that very moment, I can say I contributed to the species of man. I hope that you are not just living just for the sake that you can go to heaven one day.

7) To me, most religions preaches relationships with God, doing whatever he deem to be ‘right’. Christianity is no different.

1) Our respect for God is not automatic. Simply accepting everything we have been told as toddlers would be blind faith, but actively seeking the truth isn’t blind faith.

2) Actually missionaries do go to the places you have mentioned, and are killed every day by non-believers for proclaiming their faith. The whole world is our mission field, not only places plagued with poverty and sickness. God didn’t tell us to convert people who are poor/sick/uneducated, but to spread the Gospel until EVERYONE has heard. 

3) Your example of Noah and the Ark has answered your question. God gave people the choice to follow Him, or to be drowned. Noah and his family followed Him, and survived. If He didn’t want to give them a choice, He could have done what you suggested: laser everything.

Of cos God did not specifically tell you who to convert. What I’m trying to say is most people who are sucessfully converted are either uneducated/young, sick or the desperate.

You didn’t answer my questions actually. Why did God only give Noah the choice? Noah is a person, not everyone. Why did God not give innocent children any chances? Why did God demand so many people killed? Why did God demand the death of homosexuals and virgin brides and disobedient teenagers? Why did God not answer the prayers of Africans and those who lived under tyrants? Why did God fail to heal amputees (assuming he can heal cancer, blindness etc) Why must God send good people who do not believe in him to hell? Isn’t it very unfair to people born in the ‘wrong’ places or family?

Once again, I would like to apologise for this massive wordcount. Some of the arguments have already been covered while others are new. I feel this is important as it summarises the main and core differences of Christianity as well as Atheist pretty nicely and I’ll elaborate on some of them in due time.

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life of individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion is concerned, it is a damned fake … Religion is all bunk. – Thomas Edison

But I need to tell everyone about my worst bus ride EVER. I’m 22 this year, which means that I’ve probably taken a hell lot of bus rides. From crazy old man, to persistent church man and the stench of Indian men, I’ve seen it all. For guys who have been through National Service, just recall how you smell at the end of field camp. Now, multiply it by 10 times, and picture 30 of you packed in the upper deck of a SBS bus. I was on my way to harbourfront and I experienced air pollution all the way from China. Even after I had alighted, I couldn’t shake that smell off.

You can be a non-English speaker, you can destroy the Bell curve and get all the As in the world, you can have the jobs you want in Singapore. But please, BATHE! 

p.s. Beware the next time you take bus 10 from NUS at 930pm. If it is absolutely necessary for you to take the bus at that time, oxygen mask is recommended as SBS transit is not responsible for any respiratory illness that you may experience during and after the journey.

I’m just curious as to why there are so many of them when the rest of the religions just have one, and why the name ‘crusade’ is used. I understand that Campus Crusade for Christ is an international organisation but to name themselves after a series of military campaigns waged by Christian Europe against members of other religions is inappropriate and disrespectful.

Their mission statement is also one of the reasons that turned me away from Christianity.

“Our Mission: To turn lost students into Christ-centred labourers for the global harvest”

The Christian notion that everyone who does not believe in Christ are ‘lost’ is an insult to many people around the World. And it is ironic that the members of Campus Crusade seems more ‘lost’ than anyone. It also gives me an opportunity to explain the perils of religion.

The following excerpt was extracted from the Science Crusade blog. The entry is entitled “Sharing My Faith with My Professor” by Ng Shu Zhen.

Quote

One of my lecturers loves to talk and express his two cents worth of many things in life.
One of which was Christianity. He remarked on how the bible was not reliable, owing to a scientific theory, and told the class to be discerning about the things they read and believe in. It was shocking and depressing for me to hear.
1 Cor 2:12 – “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.”

Unquote

I must make it clear that this is not written against the writer or her religion. In fact, it applies to any believer with any religion.The danger of religion is that many a times, students take “holy books” as the word of absolute truth. Taught since young not to question the word of God. When education and religion clashes, it is sad when religion prevails. I’ve been through endless sessions of “Sunday School” when I was young and I think I’m qualified enough to say this.

Apparently, Shu Zhen thinks that her lecturer’s view of “to be discerning about the things they read and believe in” is wrong. What is the use of a tertiary education when you can have all the education you have from your holy book? An education is suppose to impart knowledge, and most importantly the skills of critical thinking to students. Instead of looking up on why the Bible is not reliable, and perhaps rebutting the lecturer, the first reaction of Shu Zhen was to say it was ‘shocking’ and ‘depressing’. I challenge any Christian who can give me proof and evidence that the Bible is of absolute truth (You are not allowed to quote the Bible as proof). This incident also caused her to lose interest in her the lecture itself. I’m just wondering if her lecturer’s failure to be a Christian means that he is not trustworthy. As much as I respect her choice of religion, I do not think that blogging about her experience as a positive one should be condoned.

I have personally heard of a case whereby a JC lecturer told her class before a biology lecture that Evolution is not true and she’s just teaching for the sake of examinations. I wonder how many students took her word for it that day. Before you question anything said against your religion or holy book, please pause to take note of the following. You wouldn’t want to use a textbook written ten years ago to study for your Exams, why do you want use a book written 2000 years ago for inspiration on how to lead your life? I can’t speak for other holy books, but the Bible is the book that told us the World was flat. Not very convincing I must say.

I wonder who got the shit job of scouring the planet for the 15000 species of butterfy or the 8800 species of ant they eventually took on board Noah’s Ark. But at least we got that magical rainbow for all their trouble. – Azura Skye