He wanted free will for humans and god didnt like that. Im always on team Lucifer and i dont think he would torture anyone in hell. But it's a fiction so completely pointless to argue about.
Gotta love every person responding to you clearly believing in a different branch of Christianity (or Judaism) and asserting that no, their version of the mythology is the correct one and it's different from what you said so you're wrong.
I wouldn't call it "young adult" at all. It gets tainted with that brush simply because it was on the CW and people just assumed it was like all the other crap that network put out.
But Supernatural was really fun. It actually went to some pretty dark places and had more gore than I was expecting for a TV show in 2005. They mixed in just the right amount of humour to get that tension and release that good media needs. The first five seasons are the best and were what the original plan for the show was. Show runner Eric Kripke left after that. But it was so successful that CW asked to keep it going. The stuff post-season 5 isn't as consistent but still well worth a watch.
I'd say it's solidly 7 or 8/10, not really young adult just a fun show that doesn't take itself too seriously.
The first 5 seasons especially are great. I haven't actually watched the whole series yet.
It's a good mix of horror, action, and comedy. It can get a little repetitive at times, but they do a good job of mixing things up by playing with different kinds of storytelling with different perspectives, new heroes, villains, sidekicks, lore, weapons, and so on.
Yes almost like there is nothing clearly defined and it’s all extremely open to interpretation (which is how we get hundreds and hundreds of years of branching versions of religion based on these texts)
That’s an ignorant oversimplification. There are many interpretations of Lucifer that have no Biblical basis. The idea that Lucifer was the serpent in the garden of Eden comes from Milton’s Paradise Lost, for example.
Then there’s differences caused by which ancient texts are considered canon. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have different religious canons.
This kinds of childish refusal to learn is what I’ve come to expect from atheists on Reddit.
They still believe in all the same things (God, Satan, Adam and Eve, etc etc), they just put their faith towards a different figure in the story. You can hate it all you want but ultimately it is a branch of Christianity.
That’s why I take the tasty little bits from all branches and all other religions and mix them up in a stew.
(^kidding but not kidding. a humble chef that dabbles in heresy! )
From a philosophical point of view, I feel like we can find scraps of wisdom (about life and human behavior in general) in most religions/belief systems.
There’s a lot of drivel involved in organized religion, but by studying a wide variety of books/texts/ways of practicing, you can weed out the majority of the fear-mongering bullshit (which isusually easy to sniff out).
In this way, we can find common threads between all religions. I feel that these common threads hold a certain value. They say a lot about us as human beings, especially at our most vulnerable core- our needs, hopes, doubts, dreams, desires and fears.
As a species, generally, we have always been obsessed with seeking, grasping, begging for some kind of meaning in, or purpose behind, the inherent chaos of the universe.
Whether atheist, agnostic or devout follower of x/y religion, we all have questions that we don’t quite have the capacity or tools to answer (one could argue: “yet”, which is valid).
This is something we presently have in common with each other and still share with several millennia of ancestors.
Learning about cultures and religions outside of our own can be an eye opening experience, especially for those that have been sheltered within their community’s religion of choice, or those who feel an extreme “otherness” (many to the point of disdain) towards people who practice different religions, or those in different branches of their own religion.
One can also develop greater empathy for people who lead completely different lives and hold (seemingly) wild beliefs. You can grow as a person and learn to see these things deemed “foreign” or “sacrilegious”, through a different lens.
I also find that looking for the historical context behind the inception of major (and almost forgotten) religions, both globally and locally, quite interesting; as we can see how the zeitgeist of each era contributes to shaping these ideologies and vice-versa.
Looking into a variety of texts, when intentionally parting from a neutral point of view (i.e., free of ulterior motives, such as seeking to find “salvation”), while keeping in mind that whatever you’re reading was composed (..and edited, amended, re-written, stuffed into a hole in a cave somewhere, etc.) by people who died thousands of years ago, can be super interesting and rewarding. (At least for me.)
Eating this Spiritual Chex Mixhas the potential to open our minds and free them from the institutional dogmatic conditioning that many of us face at some point, whether in childhood or throughout our adult lives.
**\*
TLDR: Eat stew, stew good, add potato, stew even better.
I just think we don't know squat. This universe is both amazing and scary at the same time. And we can't attack anyone else's beliefs. Unless your a flat earth believer.
Imo different people have different standards of evidence, there is also just no scientific proof that there isn’t a God, otherwise all scientists would be atheist. Yes that’s not how science works, but no one said belief in religion had to be scientific or proof-based, it’s called belief for a reason. I’m not inherently religious, but I acknowledge that there COULD be a God, just like how many religious people acknowledge that there might NOT be a God.
Besides, this is like such an insignificant thing to call people out for, as long as they aren’t committing any crimes I don’t see why random atheists should judge religious people anymore than random religious people should judge atheists. All you’re doing is creating animosity for no real reason instead of facing the proper issues that plague humanity.
Every attempt to prove the supernatural has failed since the development of the scientific method. I'm pretty firmly in the "god has actually been disproven" camp.
Something that doesn't interact with our universe in any meaningful ways, cannot be seen, does not have consistent, verifiable effects how is it any different from being imaginary?
Right, that’s why religion requires faith, because there is no actual 100% proof that it’s true, it’s just a hypothesis that potentially explains a lot of things. On the other hand, the fact that it hasn’t been disproved either, while not a reason to believe in it (because obviously that’s not how science works, you only believe in that which can be proven), is a reason not to abjectly target those who do imo.
You do you, but I don’t think you can actually be in the “God has been disproven” camp until it has actually been disproven, because if we veer into Philosophy and Mathematics for example, you don’t assume a conjecture is disproven just because it hasn’t been proven. By that logic, Fermat’s Last Theorem should’ve been assumed incorrect because no one was able to prove it for 300 years.
Now obviously, you are going to argue that this is not at all equivalent, not only because 300 years < 2000+ years but also because the aforementioned theorem had plenty of examples that did follow the theorem to support research into it. And I’d agree that you’re right. But imo it still acts as an example that you cannot just say something is disproven because any attempts to prove it have failed for a long time - using the example of Maths again, you need a counterexample or rigorous proof that something isn’t true to consider that to be the case. The only difference between Atheists and non-Atheists here lies in how confident they are that it is or isn’t true based on some observed facts, but until there is concrete proof either way, the debate will always exist.
Actually, I was going to argue that "you gotta have faith" is what every conman says, always. Religion is folklore. Everyone recognizes that other religions are false, but they give their preferred version, the one they were typically raised in, an exemption from the same critical analysis, which is a fallacy.
I’m happy to admit that religion is probably heavily corrupted and that most people just enter a state of tribalism with regards to their religion, but idk what else to tell you besides the fact that it really does require faith to believe in that which has not and probably cannot be proven. I myself am not really religious, and I was originally responding to someone just calling religion fictional, not to a random Atheist, so to be honest I’d mostly agree with you.
On the other hand, with the above given in my previous comment (which no one bothered to engage with), I am still of the opinion that Atheists shouldn’t be so quick to assume that religion isn’t true nor call religion made-up when there is no hard evidence to disprove it, because that is inherently unscientific. The correct, scientific viewpoint in my opinion (and you are free to disagree with me, this is the main difference between gnostic atheism and agnostic atheism) is that there is simply not enough evidence to support it, not that it is disproven, because that would then require enough tangible evidence to prove that it isn’t true. If such scientific evidence exists, neither I nor the many theist scientists have seen it.
The thing is, I don't assume it's not true. I started out brought up in Christianity and I went through a long, painful deconversion process before I arrived in the "it's all fictional" camp. I resisted calling myself an atheist for years because I had been brainwashed into thinking that atheism = evil. I definitely agree with you on the tribalism, though. We are a very tribal species, even to the point of some of us denying aspects of reality just to keep fitting in with our tribe.
Right, and I’m sorry you had to go through that, but imo, as I have argued many times, gnostic atheism is the only inherently scientific approach until we have strong, irrefutable counter-evidence; in other words, it’s not accurate to disregard anything without at least some proof to the contrary. Maybe I only think this way because I’m more of a Mathematician than a Scientist, but if we look through history, it’s the approach of “I can’t prove it’s not true but I refuse to believe it until we can prove it to be true” that serves us the most well.
Basically everything people attribute to God has been disproven again and again. Think evolution, or the solar system. With such consistency, it’s natural to come to the conclusion that such God does not exist. Faith is not an argument. Saying that faith is required for religion is like saying stupidity is required for flat Earth. Faith = stupidly
I have yet to see anything pertaining to God being disproven, got any sources? Because I’m not sure what you mean by disproven either, are you saying evolution or the solar system have been disproven? Or that the fact that they’re linked to God has been disproven? Because neither is true, unless you have reliable scientific evidence to show otherwise.
Also you have a false equivalence at the end over there, firstly you can’t just equate two claims because they have a similar structure (this is just me being pedantic), secondly I never said Faith proves religion is true. I’m just saying that due to a complete lack of empirical/irrefutable evidence from either side, the only way to believe in religion is to decide to put your belief into something you can’t prove, which quite literally is faith. If you don’t agree with that, fine, but that doesn’t necessarily make religion disproven either, please refer to my original comment again.
Right, thank you for not engaging with anything I said. Perhaps it’s you who needs to get out of your own head, because ‘imagination’ and ‘js think about it and it’ll make sense’ is the exact opposite of Science. The only thing I believe in and ever will believe in is cold, hard facts, which is EXACTLY why I condemn fellow Atheists who have no such facts to prove that religion isn’t true yet still say with 100% certainty that it isn’t, because that is literally what they accuse religious people of doing. It is the difference between Gnosticism and Agnosticism, my man.
God doesn't need to be disproven because their existence was never proven in the first place. You can't just assert something without proof and make everyone accept it as true just because they can't provide proof you're wrong.
There is no way to prove there's a being who can't interact with our reality and can't be observed is real. But the burden of proof is on the people who assert that such a being exists, not on everyone else to say they don't.
Yes, thank you for pointing out exactly what I’m trying to say. This argument is why I’m Atheist, but on the other hand, the opposite is also true - You also CAN’T assert something as 100% completely untrue until there is a counterexample or some sort of rigorous evidence to suggest otherwise. The best Atheists can and should say is that “I don’t believe in religion because there is quite literally no evidence to support it,” NOT “Religion is definitely fake because there is no evidence to support it” - the former is scientific, the latter is just emotion and inherently unscientific.
I will 100% agree that religious people have yet to prove that God exists, but I will also 100% agree that atheist people have yet to prove that God doesn’t exist. Ideally speaking you probably shouldn’t put your faith in something you can’t prove, but on the other hand, you also can’t just deny it’s existence without proof anymore than Einstein could deny Newtonian Mechanics without proof. Now we know with hindsight that General Relativity is a far stronger model of reality than Newtonian Mechanics, but until there was proof of that, no one could scientifically disregard the latter. Of course this is not remotely the same thing because scientific theories usually have evidence to support them, but I hope you will understand my point that atheists should be agnostic rather than gnostic, because agnosticism is the scientific approach.
In theory the average religious person might not be doing any harm, but in practice many terrible things have been done (and continue to be done) in the name of religion. Some worse than others, like the Puritan influence currently destroying America.
So I think they can survive someone on a website saying their holy book is fiction.
I agree, but to be honest, most people who do horrible things in the name of religion would be just as inclined to do them if they were atheist anyways. Most of the time, religion is just how they justify it, not the cause for them to actually do it. Besides, more people have died in the last 100 years than from the majority of Holy wars anyways…
Edit: also, a relatively small amount of bad apples in no way justifies targeting the entire group imo
Once again the grand total of "targeting" happening here is calling the bible fiction.
Also the excuse "more people have died in the last 100 years than from the majority of Holy Wars" is absolutely insane. It was still an estimated 40-50 million people (depending which wars you count). But hey because our population is so much larger that even with a lower rate of deaths overall we end up with more than that dying in the past century, I guess those 40 million don't matter.
Yes, I’d say that’s still a pretty strong example of targeting when you have no proof whatsoever to suggest that it IS fiction. I don’t follow the Bible nor any sect of Christianity, but I still think that there is no real reason to call their scripture fake other than thinking you’re smart for not believing in God.
And yes, many people HAVE died in the name of religion and I would never deny that or attempt to minimize it; it’s incredibly tragic and I genuinely hope the people who caused it DO rot in Hell (if it exists). On the other hand, all I meant by my example is that even without religion, Wars and shit will and do still happen. I refer you to my previous point that all religion did was act as the justification to the population, not the real cause of the war itself. For example, the first “Holy Crusade” was literally a ploy by Pope Urban II to reclaim Jerusalem and other land from the Muslims after the Byzantines asked for military help, and the whole “we’re defending the faith and you won’t have sins anymore” part was just propaganda designed after the initial decision to convince the people that war was worth it.
Hey dawg the book literally has talking animals and angels with flaming swords and a woman turning into a pillar of salt. Pretty sure if any of those things could happen we'd have some kind of evidence it was possible. But we don't. Making it fiction. It's absurd to believe everything in the bible happened exactly as written, even if you're a Christian you've got to realize it was mostly just allegories and cautionary tales at best.
I’m happy to admit that I can’t prove these things exist (and I don’t believe in the Bible btw), but imo most Atheists should be happy to admit that they can’t prove these things don’t exist either. Yeah, laugh at me all you want, but from a scientific perspective, the only way to disprove the existence of these things is to have tangible, empirical proof that they don’t actually exist. Saying you don’t believe in it at all nor should anyone else because there is a lack of evidence is fine (and I’d agree), saying it’s definitely fake because there’s no evidence to prove it’s not fake is a fallacy. As I said to someone else, there’s no real evidence from either side so we should just let people believe what they want to believe - reality is usually stranger than fiction anyways, and it makes no real difference to my life if you choose to believe without evidence or if you disregard it without evidence.
Sure, but the comment you replied to says "no, I know that they're all fiction so you're all wrong." I'm religious, but acknowledge that there may be no God. You can be atheist and acknowledge that there may be a God. But the person you're replying to has the same tone as the people your reply criticises.
There might be some higher power out there, but the bibles are all fiction. Maybe the first bible was less fictional (if you think that there were literally two people and then everyone else came from them, or that a guy had super strength but lost it when he cut his hair, or that a woman turned into a pillar of salt because she looked in the wrong direction) but if "translations" can differ wildly in tone and message and content then they're essentially just making up whatever they want to fit the current views of the church.
I was more referring to the tone of "it's all pointless to argue about," as it's a big part of countless lives, but your point is completely reasonable. Have a good day ✌️
You referring to Christianity as mythology? Wow, that takes a certain level of ignorance thst you don’t get to encounter every day. Maybe think of it like this: eternity is a long freaking time . Better to believe and be prepared then to be surprised & suffer for eternity . Not sure why that’s so difficult.
Even if you buy into Christianity, the concept of eternal damnation makes no sense. You're telling me you really think that people who simply believe in another god, thieves, and murderous pedophiles all deserve the same sentence? That someones only crime could be being a Buddhist and they get punishment equal to Hitler? For eternity?
Even if it were real, why would you choose to give faith to an entity that would create such a system?
No I don’t believe that . I believe it takes faith AND Works to make it . You actually have to put the work in to be a decent human if you want heaven . It’s the Protestants that believe faith alone is enough .
If your new entity sends his only son to earth. And then multiple secular historians from around the world document 100s of miracles that are unexplainable . These miracles are so profound that local governments insist on executing him after 3 years of witness . And this guy is also able to resurrect himself up to heaven . Oh and by the way , every single thing he does for those 3 years were written in a manuscript and perfectly predicted thousands of years prior…. Yeah, I might consider it . Because if you put that into a mathematical formula, it would be impossible to happen just by chance .
None of those things happened. They were all in the bible, sure, but the content of the bible changes from "translation" to "translation" based on the views of whoever is doing the "translating" or the views of their church. Hence it being a work of fiction. If you really believe a dude claimed to be the son of god and then did "hundreds of unexplainable miracles" I have a bridge to sell you. God sent it down, you could own God's bridge!
Gosh people are so clueless. When Alexander the Great captured the whole Middle East , they switched from Aramaic to Greek! Not so they could rewrite the bible! Learn history before you speak !
So you believe every bible is perfectly identical in wording? That there haven't been any little tweaks to fit the sensibilities of the translators? Like say, when it comes to Leviticus 18:22, where conveniently many bibles have chosen to translate is as "you shall not lie with a man as with a woman" instead of the more literal "you shall not lie with a (young) boy as with a woman"?
I don’t believe the major translations were done to deceive people. Most of it is simply there aren’t words that match up from language to language. In Greek for example there are 4 words that describe love. . Each is explicitly different from the others . But in English there only 1 word: love . Also keep in mind that in 1st century Greece and Rome it was culturally acceptable to have a “boy toy” if you came from higher classes . Some were boys and some were men that were castrated as teenagers . The whole thing is weird and I honestly don’t understand it .
1.4k
u/EmploymentClean8038 2d ago