It’s fully justified for people to follow Atheism after the events of today’s world. I fully understand people who want to move away from believing in a God, who supposedly loves us, that just leaves us to die. Sometimes, religious people will try to play it off that if a person survives a hurricane or some other disaster, like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, then they were saved by God. If you’d ask me, this would be utterly unfair if God was truly real. Just because someone survives a disaster doesn’t mean that God saved them, just so they can become his slave to praise him and force others to, while leaving the others to die and be judged in Heaven. I’m dragging this on for a long time, just needed to preach their for a second about how I feel this wonderful Sunday morning.
Have an amazing Sunday.
This concept just stuck in my mind.
I feel for the struggle of LGBT people who haven't yet experienced the faith-affirming love that a relationship can provide.
It sucks that we as LGBT people have to run this gauntlet of hate just to accept ourselves without the affirmation of a relationship grounded in love.
God did intend this love I share with my partner. It's one of the pivotal experiences of what it means to be human is to share love with another.
Anti-LGBT Christians try and scare us away from this. The background radiation of homophobia grinds us down and delays us, hoping that we suffer because they fear something they don't understand and immediately see as obvious.
It's why coming out is so central and important because people will recognize the truth the more it is an inevitability that stares them in the face.
As we all came to know in our journey: Chicken is love. Chicken is live. But today our loving chicken mother has failed me miserably. I was getting two very nice chicken legs from the grocery store and was looking forward to them all day. I am on 1500 cals per day and I knew that chicken legs have more cals than breast so I saved up 1000 cals for dinner. For dinner I was preparing the legs just with salt, pepper, fresh thyme and a small touch of olive oil (5 ml). I wanted to eat some salad with them but honestly they were so filling I just kept the salad for tomorrow. So know the bad part: I weighed the bones and subtracted it from the raw weight of the legs. Thankfully the amount of calories per 100 g was on the package. Guess how much these two plain legs had?
1100 calories!
Yes I know they were big and I ate them with the skin, but wtf? This is why measuring your food with a scale and logging is important. I would have eyeballed them to be around 600-700 calories. This is how easy it is to underestimate your intake.
In John 17 Jesus prays the following:
> I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Jesus is God right? So, why does God fail to answer his own prayers to himself?
As far as I am aware, there has never been total unification among all Christians. Even from the earliest days, there has always been strife, disagreement, politicking, back-biting, and hatred among the various Christian communities. Even the 2nd century neo-Platonic philosopher Celsus recognized that it seemed impossible to find any two Christians who substantially agreed with each other on...anything!
The long history of Christendom is a history of war, anathemas, inquisitions, hatred, book-burning, mutual excommunications, popes and anti-popes, patriarchs and Caesars at each other's throats, and widespread disagreement among Christians of various kinds. Even the scriptures disagree among themselves. It's James vs. Peter vs. Paul and on and on. Even within the Catholic church there are factions at odds with each other about many things. Even the current pope is an object of disagreement, contention, and strife.
What gives?
Some potential excuses:
Jesus was talking about the Eschaton, not his times or the near future.
I disagree, he explicitly says "so the world might believe that you sent me." In other words, the unity of all Christians is supposed to be a divine sign that Jesus is sent by God. If Jesus were referring to the apocalypse, why would the unity of all Christians be any more convincing than the Son of Man coming on the clouds in power and glory, stars falling out of the skies, etc? It seems to me Jesus wanted his follower's unity to be a sign of God's blessing and the genuine truth of Christian belief...so shouldn't we take disunity as a sign of falsehood?
Muh "free-will"
How would it contradict free will for God to answer his own prayer to himself? Why would he even ask for such a thing if it is fundamentally impossible due to some inviolable feature of humanity or the universe like free will? Why would he ask for somet
... keep reading on reddit ➡After Richard Bushman spoke highly of him in Rough Stone Rolling, I decided to read John Corrill's A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints today and was impressed by his description at the end of why he dissented. I find it provides an interesting look into the experience and mindset of early Mormons:
> I have left you, not because I disbelieve the bible, for I believe in God, the Saviour, and religion the same as ever; but when I retrace our track, and view the doings of the church for six years past, I can see nothing that convinces me that God has been our leader; calculation after calculation has failed, and plan after plan has been overthrown, and our prophet seemed not to know the event till too late. If he said go up and prosper, still we did not prosper; but have labored and toiled, and waded through trials, difficulties, and temptations, of various kinds, in hope of deliverance.
> But no deliverance came. The promises failed, and time after time we have been disappointed; and still were commanded, in the most rigid manner, to follow him, which the church did, until many were led into the commission of crime; have been apprehended and broken down by their opponents, and many have been obliged to abandon their country, their families, and all they possessed, and great affliction has been brought upon the whole church. What shall we say to these things? Did not your prophet proclaim in your ears that the day was your own, and you should overcome; when in less than a week you were all made prisoners of war, and you would have been exterminated, had it not been for the exertions and influence of a few dissenters, and the humane and manly spirit of a certain officer?
> But where now may you look for deliverance? You may say, in God; but I say, in the exercise of common sense and that sound reason with which God has endowed you; and my advice is to follow that, in preference to those pretended visions and revelations which have served no better purpose than to increase your trouble, and which would bind you, soul and body, under the most intolerable yoke.
Joseph Smith Papers notes that the manuscript originally ended as such: Instead of “under the most intolerable yoke,” the manuscript ends, “under that bondage which is more to be dreaded than the Roman Yoke or Spanish Inquisition. For my own part, I had rather enjoy liberty in Hell, than suffer bondage in Heaven.”
[Source](http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-sum
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Hi everyone, small bit of unnecessary backstory: I’m 19 in England I get dragged along to a Baptist church with my family, probably about once a month. I compromise and help out with the sound desk as my only real involvement with the church, music production/mixing is an interest of mine so would prefer to actually do something I enjoy to an extent rather than be bored shitless. Until a few months ago I wouldn’t have classed myself as an atheist, more apathetic and thought there was no reason the story of Jesus and what Christianity preached could really cause any inconvenience to me.
The last 3 or 4 months, I’ve got really interested in the subject, done a lot of research, spent countless hours on this subreddit and become what you lot might call an “old” atheist. I keep my mouth shut, tell anyone who asks (other than atheist friends) religion is a personal matter, its not important what I believe. I don’t bash religious people or anything, each to their own, right? As long as it causes no harm to anyone (arguably Christianity does, but a topic for another time).
Today I attended and thought I would actually listen instead of browsing Reddit, I decided to actually listen to what the sermon had to preach. Most of it was blah blah God is great, look at the good he does if you put your trust in him blah blah blah. But then at the end the guy said something along the lines of “if you are in this room and don’t feel the Holy Spirit, I urge you to stay until you do. Fall to your knees and shout out for Jesus to enlighten you and show you they way”. I’m paraphrasing but something along those lines.
Now of course I didn’t do that, I’m a closeted atheist to any church related family or friends (I'm not interested in coming out to my parents like a lot of people in this sub) so its not like I needed to do this to gain approval, and obviously I wasn’t interested, but it did get me thinking. I myself am probably the most cynical person I know, perhaps too cynical to embrace a higher power; I tend to think, if there is a god, he would show himself to me if he wanted me to believe in him, not go seeking him. I don’t surround myself with churchgoers, and when I do, I usually just think of them, as indoctrinated non-freethinkers and I somewhat pity them. My sister made friends with girls who are all Christians and she now is pretty involved with the church, and even got baptised. (Not sure how I feel about that but again I’ll keep that to myself.)
It got me think
... keep reading on reddit ➡The Christmas concert had a bunch of songs about jesus too, but I gave them a pass because it was Christmas and whatever.
But this concert, they could have chosen any song. Any topic at all. And still, half the songs were subtly religious and at least 2 were overtly religious.
Am I blowing this out of proportion in my mind because I'm still "recovering" from Mormonism and it's like getting slapped when you already have a sunburn? Or would this rub you the wrong way too?
This is getting a bit ridiculous now! I deal with a property management company and wonder what you guys suggest should be the resolution in a case like this, where I have had to throw out hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of perishable goods in the last year due to a faulty fridge which has not been properly repaired on two occasions!
According to D&C 132, angels are not gods and it is an end to their increase.
Moroni is just a tool.
The EU tried and failed to abolish it, but I'd love to hear the person on the streets views about it. The pros the cons? Do those pros and cons change as you go up the country etc..
