atheism has completely failed to improve the human condition
Discussion
I think individualism has dramaitically improved the human condition & was likely the real heart of Christianity in the first place. An atheist individualist is probably a better member of society than most religious people have been for most of human history. Belief in "God" doesn't magically make people good. Many just imagine that their "God" has granted them every psychopathic indulgence that crosses their mind, like the Israeli soldiers raping Palestinians, because they are "the chosen people" who can do whatever they want. But the athiest tendency to mindlessly worship the state produces equally horrifying conditions. And quite often the state & religious authorities have been one & the same.
Humans have a weird bias toward the past. We donāt remember things accurately and history isnāt well studied. People often say the world is going to shit and that things were better ābefore.ā Were they really? This is sometimes called seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Religious people seem to romanticize the past more for some reason. I think itās because they donāt truly understand history. Not that there is anything wrong with believing in god but donāt act like the dark ages were a civilization of advancement. Donāt act like the religious crusades and other wars never happened. Donāt act like religion is all peace and love. And yeah yeah I know someone will say that the books are peaceful and itās only human corruption that leads to these evils. But isnāt that more reason to value individualism over collectivism? The nature of religion leads to centralized power. The Protestant movement was literally an attempt to decentralize Christianity. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. It was only after Christians disobeyed the church that humanity took another step forward. Blasphemy! The printing press literally advanced humanity because it undermined religion! The greatest period of human flourishing, the gold standard, happened after the separation of church and state. Most people in the world still believe in religion so claiming that āatheismā failed assumes that the world is mostly atheist. It is not. And because no religion has objective evidence to support its claims, there can NEVER be any reconciliation or agreement amongst different religions. There will always be conflict between religions.
And yes lest not we forget slave owners justifying slavery to slavers using the Bible was of course good for the slaves
Or the murder of children and raping of women.
Anti-theism is just as much of a āreligionā as any kind of statist Christianity or Islam or anything else. All of it can and has been used to commit atrocities.
None of this changes what Jesus taught us and the wisdom that is contained in his teaching.
Godās natural law is the basis for all human thought and advancement, from Platoās cave to Christās Gospel, to the Magna Carta, to the declaration of independence, these teachings have built upon the foundation for Human Liberty.
Correct, humans tend to do horrible shit when they get into large groups. Weāre tribal unfortunately. You seem to have disproven your own statement though.
Jesus taught you personally? Because he never taught me anything. I never met the guy.
Can you define Godās natural law?
Well yes itās written in Plato, the Gospel, Magna Carta, etc-
Basically it is this:
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Thatās not a law. Thatās more of a life philosophy. Which the Bible violates when it commands murder.
āNow kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.ā (Numbers 31: 17-18)
that is the jewish torah. when I talk about the bible I am talking about the gospel of Christ, which is what Jesus said and confirmed by the spirit today.
Is Jesus not the same god that authored the Torah?
You quoted it for yourself, there is obviously something very different in that Numbers verse, compared to Jesus's teaching which is not to murder under any circumstances.
Matthew26:52 āPut your sword back in its place,ā Jesus said to him, āfor all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
Okay but itās the same god right? Why did god just suddenly stop being violent?
I don't know man, Jesus said that he is the only way to salvation so his teaching is what I personally focus on.
I am trying to write in the other thread, the helpful thing here is to determine the best way to get rid of the power of the State, which I think we agree on as bitcoiners.
Muhammad said the same thing. So did Moses and Noah and all the others. Why believe Jesus? What makes Jesus right and everyone else wrong? The author of the Torah is the same as the author of the New Testament. That means Jesus, who you believe is god, wrote that verse from numbers. That means he violated the ātreat others the way you want to be treated.ā
I agree that we both want to get rid of the power of the state.
I believe Jesus is the Son of God (God the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit) because it has been shown to me in my life that it is true.
Lots of teachings from human history, and we can learn from all of them in my opinion.
The "correct" ones are the ones that help us follow natural law:
do not murder
do not steal
treat others justly, etc.
Respect. Follow whatever God you want but treat people kindly. š
I believed in Jesus is the Son of God (God the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit) because it has been shown to me in my life that it is true.
Lots of teachings from human history, and we can learn from all of them in my opinion.
The "correct" ones are the ones that help us follow natural law:
do not murder
do not steal
treat others justly, etc.
Of course you are free to believe what you want. But you havenāt been able to provide any hard evidence for why you believe this. And you havenāt been able to explain the contradictions I pointed out. We can agree to disagree but I hope you can at least understand why op called it an imaginary abstraction now.
the fucking tyranny of the state that is currently ruling over us is not imaginary.
The post originally by Jeff was explaining the role in the human psyche of the Higher Power and how it can be twisted into acceptance of the tyranny
The state IS imaginary. Itās not a physical entity. Itās a mental conception that does not exist. You canāt see, touch, smell, hear, or taste the state. The state cannot think. It cannot speak. It cannot feel. What you refer to as the state is just a group of violent individuals using violence to control and extort people. When a cop murders someone, they say im just doing my job that the state requires me to do. When they killed those young boys and non virgin women from the numbers verse, they said Iām just fulfilling the commandments of god. God and the state have no physical existence in our world. They are imaginary.
The murder and violence and slavery and genocide is real so what causes it is real and must be defeated somehow.
The way to stop the violence, slavery, & genocide in the name of imaginary things is to get people to realize they aren't real. When people realize they are resposible for their own actions they will think twice.
I fundamentally disagree with this approach.
The STATE is real.
It exists as a psychological/spiritual condition of human slaves causing them to disregard natural law- rationalizing war, taxes, abuse, etc.
You are saying you will āexorciseā this ādemonā by convincing the people it doesnāt exist?
That will not work, at least in the area of the work I am in.
āIt exists as a psychological/spiritual conditionā
That makes it imaginary. It has no existence in the physical realm.
Tell that to the Swat team when they are breaking down your front door.
You are the one that said the state exists psychologically and spiritually. Not me lmao
How are you going to help dismantle/decommission the state if you donāt even know what it is?
Sir, you said the state exists psychologically and spiritually. How can you dismantle a psychological/spiritual phenomenon?
By following Christ and using the Holy Spirit to cast it back into hell where it belongs.
Have you not had anyone in your family with a drug addiction or alcoholism who got sober. It is similar to that.
So basically youāre saying pray harder. But countless people have been praying to have these problems fixed and nothing ever magically fixed itself. Itās people that fix it.
Telling people that the sun god they want to sacrifice you to isn't real might not stop them from killing you either, but it doesn't make their sun god real.
You are just implying that might makes right. But truth has nothing to do with who has the greater numbers & who can kill who.
What language is this? I said it makes it REAL- *not* right.
Iām sorry I guess I thought you wanted to fix the problem.
I will try one more time:
Do you think it would be better to tell the Mayan priests that the Sun doesnāt exist?
Or would you tell them the truth? -That the Sun does not demand human sacrifice.
In my definition, mental illness or conditions like alcoholism for example ARE REAL. Statism is another mental illness. Which is real. Atheism is another IMO.
God is real and you will stand before him one day very soon, all our lives are but dust in the wind.
Itās up to you if you will have Christ vouching for you on that day or not.
I was agreeing with what he said about the state/government being an imaginary abstraction lol
But atheism is not a physical living thing that can improve anything. Itās just a belief system. Some hold it and some donāt. Some of those people improved the human condition and others did not. Not sure what your point is?
Iām saying as a social construct, anti-theism has failed to produce anything positive for humanity.
I believe faith in God provides reason and respect for natural law which helps us pursue liberty and reject tyranny.
There is a reason communist regimes always outlaw religion.
Do you have any evidence for this claim that it has produced nothing of value? Last time I checked, evolutionary theory led to our understanding of genetics. Iād say that is a positive discovery for humanity.
How does faith, which is devoid of reason, provide reason? That doesnāt make sense.
Because religion is political. You can argue that communism is a religion. Like all religions, they donāt want any other religion competing with them.
Ok so Iām not arguing for religion. Iām arguing for Christ Jesus and how recognizing his existence is beneficial for humans. Jesus taught us to Love God, and Love each other āas ourselvesā.
(Healthy, peaceful society)
Also itās my opinion that having this awareness of God- (call it faith, religion, culture) is more beneficial than atheism or anti-theism.
My main argument is: acknowledgement of God (higher power) leads to understanding natural law (private property) which if fully realized and implemented, would completely eliminate the individual humanās tolerance of tyrannical governments that cause the vast majority of the āevilā we suffer from in life.
I think it is similar to bitcoin- bitcoin is great because we know it can never be changed, it cannot be changed by a government.
If we had a more widespread understanding of Godās Law, which cannot be changed by a government- then that would help us in the fight against tyranny.
But if you donāt believe in God, then why would the government NOT be the highest authority? Able to make any law or money it pleases?
God is the unchanging authority. And thatās what makes religion (theist OR anti-theist) so powerful and dangerous. Because the people are easily deceived.
These are just your interpretations which make them opinions not fact.
Acknowledgement of God does not lead to respect of property rights otherwise Christians would never violate other peopleās property rights. My understanding is that Christians are supposed give their money to the poor which is a form of wealth redistribution (like socialist welfare/unemployment policies). Farmers worked as slaves for life under the church in the dark ages. The church was literally violating their property rights. People that questioned the earth as the center of the universe were violently attacked by members of the church. How is that acknowledgment of god respecting natural law?
People had an āunderstandingā of god before and it didnāt turn out well. If religion was so great for humanity, it wouldnāt have failed. And if you say that those people just didnāt do it right, youād be no different than the libtard communists that say the same thing about the times when communism failed.
Bitcoin can be changed. It just wonāt necessarily make it better but you never know. At some point bitcoin will have to change in order to fix the time stamp bug.
Why would the government be the highest authority absent religion? Why canāt I be the highest authority in my own life? Itās my life after all. The issue I see with religious people is that they think some authority has to exist. Who said so?
I believe that following the teaching of Christ Jesus would be beneficial for humanity. That is why I am arguing this.
I am not defending the actions of religions or saying "we need to do religion better" like the commies. (good point though)
Bitcoin changing- I meant the consensus, no single "authority" can change the time bug.
The crux of this seems to be the authority question. I believe that you are the highest authority in your life, (God gave you free-will, in my worldview)
We are both "anarchists" I think, I just leave a spot above myself for God, but will never force anyone else to do so.
The problem is there are a mass of human sheep who believe FOR SOME REASON, that there is a RIGHT for the government to own all of us and force us to pay taxes and pay for wars and genocide and etc. This majority of sheep is what gives the government power to send SWAT teams after me or you and no one would really care if we were executed at this point.
So I think what we are talking about is WHY it is that these central authorities are allowed to continue to exist.
Of course control over money is the biggest tool they have, but also control over people psychologically and even spiritually.
Thus, this is why I advocate for a revival of the Gospel of Christ Jesus, which teaches us to follow the natural law and reject false authority on earth in a non-violent way- since there is no King except for God himself.
I believe this approach is the the most effective way to remove the tyrannical state from humanity's future. I do not expect to be totally successful on my own, but I will continue to try nonetheless.
The reason these centralized powers continue to exist is for the exact same reason you mentioned. People are sheep that want authority to rule over them. They want to delegate responsibility to someone else. They donāt want to do the hard things. They donāt want to stand out and be different. But whether you prefer an entity like the government to rule over you or a religious institution like the church, makes no difference. Obedience to a government or the church makes you a sheep. Religion is a form of government after all. The only way to not be a sheep is to rule yourself. To create your own moral code and follow that.
I already mentioned that humanity living under the rule of the church during the dark ages was a horrible period. Reviving the church of Christ is not the solution and it will lead to violence. The reason it will lead to violence is because thereās no other way to get people to follow it. I certainly wonāt follow it. But Jesus wasnāt violent you say? That means it has to be optional right? So if itās optional, then what has been revived? Christianity under this anti-theism world is already optional. Thereās no difference from the way the world is today. The only way to truly revive it is to place the church as the ultimate authority using violence.