Michelangelo thought Jesus died for our gains!

[Rukh]

I'll try to close my eye on the slightly aggressive tone, friend.

Yes, Bible is crap in a lot of things, there - I said it. The thing is - it was written mainly by enlightened (possibly, if you like), but uneducated bunch. They have really believed the earth is 6000 years old. It doesn't mean we need to! The book has several thousand years if you count all the Old Testament chapters in, for God's (sic!) sake! How could you take it for granted in 2015, it's a no-brainer.

The bible doesn't actually say the earth is 6000 years old. People decided that's what it said based on taking the genealogy in Genesis from Adam to Abraham then from Abraham to Joseph. Any room for interpretation easily removes this requirement. If you don't believe that God created the earth in 6 literal days, or went from creating the earth to Eden existing in that amount of time, its not a requirement.

[Daez]

he doesn't give a flying fuck about us, or he's a malignant, evil bully.

Read the old testament... its pretty much designed to back up this belief.

[Spray]

It has nothing to do with media. Do your research. Churches are hemorrhaging members, and atheism is the largest growing religion.

I wouldn't call an atheism a religion, but yeah, I agree. However, not all religious people identify with church and it's actually a very good thing. In my country, church is corrupted to the bone. It dabbles in politics and entrepreneurship a lot, which kinda sways their opinion on everything.

I understand if you despise Christian organization, because it is largely hateful, ignorant, hypocritical and deceitful. Man, that's a lot of negative adverbs.

[Deleted]

Or.. hear me out.. he didn't die at all, because he didn't exist?

I couldn't sit though a class trying to put that forward, if it wanted to teach what religion had in it thats fine, but not trying to claim religious myth as history.

As for Michelandelo's beliefs, yes, he and many other famous influential people from the past were, Albert Einstein, Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin. It was commonplace for even the most intellectual people of those times to believe in god or a god, because that was the statusquo of such times, even in some eras considered a crime not to believe in one (such as certain middle eastern countries today).
I do believe though if these men lived today they would put aside such belief due to study, and focus fully on the discovery of new ideas, like nearly all scientists do today.

I do not believe in a God but i am almost sure you are wrong about Jesus. He DID exist, that do's not mean he was the son of a God.

[Daez]

That said, statistics shows that Atheism is growing on a daily basis (there are more atheist in the US than black people, they just - you know - don't say it out loud that often because... Well America-fuck-yeah!), and Christianity is only really growing in 3rd world countries. So religious is being pushed away.

Third world countries with an insane lack of knowledge. The Catholic Church is now almost directly responsible for the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa because people do not believe in birth control because they are Christian.

[Venziir]

Read the old testament... its pretty much designed to back up this belief.

In the Old Testament, God is pretty much a kid with an anthill and a magnifying glass - and some serious ADHD.

- - - Updated - - -

Third world countries with an insane lack of knowledge. The Catholic Church is now almost directly responsible for the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa because people do not believe in birth control because they are Christian.

Of course the modern Catholic church is against birth control. Less births, means less people, which means less followers, which means less power.

[Deleted]

Keep in mind, though - Jesus exists in many sources, including Islam ones. It's not just a Christian propaganda. Yes, both muslims and Jews do not see Jesus as a Messiah, but still report his existence. When you look at this this way, he suddenly doesn't look like a made-up character.

They all stole from / borrowed from what was the basis of the old testament.

I'm pretty sure there are clones out there of the Harry Potter story, but similarities between them doesn't make him anymore real.

[Spray]

The bible doesn't actually say the earth is 6000 years old. People decided that's what it said based on taking the genealogy in Genesis from Adam to Abraham then from Abraham to Joseph. Any room for interpretation easily removes this requirement. If you don't believe that God created the earth in 6 literal days, or went from creating the earth to Eden existing in that amount of time, its not a requirement.

Yes, exactly my point. Genesis in Bible is a metaphor, 6 God's days could very well (I believe so) be our billions of years.

He created animals (including apes) and then human. Nowhere has it been said that the human or apes were original creations, God could base them on the other being, which in turn effectively became their common ancestor. There, in a 2-minute quick, crappy draft of thoughts I've connected God with evolution.

Sometimes I think people should treat the Holy Bible in a kind of a buddhist-way. What matters is what you have in heart. The stories in Bible are there only to explain it to "plebeians", which should not be the case today. The fact people still treat the Bible as a book of facts is mind-bending to me and I'm really a faithful guy.

[Rukh]

They all stole from / borrowed from what was the basis of the old testament.

I'm pretty sure there are clones out there of the Harry Potter story, but similarities between them doesn't make him anymore real.

Jesus isn't in the Old testament. There is a mention of a messiah figure coming at some point in the future. The new Testament does its best to make this be Jesus. The Koran actually borrows from new testament lore as christianity was already a thing when it came in to being.

[Daez]

There is a big difference between things we can choose and things we can not.

I would argue that most people do not actually choose their religion. They are born into whatever religion their family has and they most likely die in whatever religion their family has. They are indoctrinated from the moment they are old enough to sit through a service without crying. Its hard as hell to completely throw off the religious aspects of your life. I would argue that it is as ingrained as homosexuality (and I'm gay). Its simply, in most cases, an unconscious choice that is made for us by our parents. I believe that the whole belief is still up to scrutiny though. I identify as atheist, but I remember my Christian roots quite well.

[Faroth]

Religion is not a topic we allow on the forums. I'm surprised it wasn't locked sooner.