Running discussion with a friend that turned religious

[flamin lib]

I made a comment about stem cells that was, I'll admit, was irreverent and confrontational. He responded with a list of people who "mocked God" and were dealt with accordingly. My response follows.
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Ya’ know, Lennon was shot in 1980, fourteen years after he “mocked God”. For an almighty omniscient deity that seems a little slow, don’t ya’ think? For my part I gave up my last imaginary friend when I was 15. It occurred to me that the whole Jesus thing didn’t make any sense on a whole lotta’ levels.

First he walks around being a troublemaker and a thorn in the side of rich people for 30 years. They finally have a belly full of him, so the kill him. He’s buried and gets up after a few days but then goes back to being dead. Is that a choice any intelligent person would make? Let’s see, I can stay down here and tell people about the miracle or I can vanish and let them wonder about it when they get the news second hand. Next I look at all the folks that say they live in His name and compare their lives to his teachings. Nothing matches. There seems to be no Christ in Christians. They all have checking accounts, homes and all the creature comforts Jesus said to get rid of. Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is his and unto God what is His, in other words separate religion from government, yet all these people living the life of Jesus want to inject the bible into statehouses. Finally, and this is what really got to me, Christians practice ritualized cannibalism and vampirism. They eat bread calling it the flesh of Jesus and drink wine (or grape juice) calling it blood. Once I figured this out I retched every time they passed the cracker to me. Besides, most of the time Jesus got stuck to the roof of my mouth and I spent the rest of the service trying to scrape him off with my tongue.

So, when I was 15 I said to God, ”I don’t believe in you. I give up ‘cause nothing these people are saying makes any sense. Good people get killed in terrible ways. Six million of your “chosen people” are slaughtered and you do nothing. Bad people live great and comfortable lives, still you do nothing. What good are you?” Then I waited with heart pounding for the lightning bolt. Nothing. I opened my eyes. Not even a cloud in the sky.

My punishment for this blasphemy was that I would have an idyllic adolescence, grow up to marry a most beautiful and intelligent woman, raise a remarkably lovely and talented daughter who gave me two of the finest grandsons any man could ask for. Forty-six years of happiness and contentment for the most part. I can look forward to twenty, maybe twenty-five, more years of life and all the joys they may hold.

If God suddenly remembered that I basically told him to fuck off forty-six years ago and decided to smite me now, I still got the better end of the deal.

[More Than A Feeling]

1. Why is your friend turning religious?

Can we have more of the story?

[ClintonTyree]

3. The last refuge of a scoundrel.......

no doubt. That's usually the case when someone of adult age has an epiphany and "finds" the lord.

[flamin lib]

4. He's not turning, the conversation did.

The subject was Stemcells and he says they come from babies who have souls. I asked if one was cloned did it share a soul or get a whole new one. If it shared, did it have to wait for the other to die to go to heaven or only go half way there?

I sorta' baited him . . .

[ClintonTyree]

6. They usually fall back on....

"it's all god's mysterious plan and we can't pretend to know it". That's their catch-all phrase when they've run out of bullshit.

I enjoy a good debate with the religiously insane as well and yes, I bait them too. I like to watch the veins pulse in their foreheads. :evilgrin:

[soothsayer]

2. Religious or God-mocking or not, we're all going to die. Nuff

said.

[ClintonTyree]

5. I'm in the same boat as you....

in god wants his revenge for my not groveling at his feet then he'd better get a move on. But then I'm probably going to spend an eternity in HELL for my non-belief. :evilgrin:
Oh well, all of my friends will be there with me and I've always been partial to wailing and gnashing my teeth. :rofl:

[cosmik debris]

7. God loves atheists more than he loves theists

We get all our blessings for free while the theists have to work for theirs. They have to go to church, pray, obey rules and generally be subservient to get their blessings. Atheists get the same, and sometimes better, and we don't have all the hassles. God definitely loves atheists more.:evilgrin:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Well, it rains on the just and the unjust

and bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people-we could all give examples of this, each according to our own definitions of "good" and "bad". The disconnect here is really on the nature of God. A person that defines That which is everything, including all laws of science, etc, is not going to suggest that an individual's experiences are either "rewards" or "punishments", but rather just are. What the individual does with these experiences (I'm thinking of experiences where the individual continues to live, of course)may help or hinder that person in how he/she views the life process and his/her own self, which makes one's life rather interesting.

And btw, even those who don't have this universal concept of God as All don't agree upon when the soul enters the body. Some say it doesn't happen until birth, and don't have a problem with using stem cells for research.