We apologize for the fault in the freedom. Those responsible for jailing the people who have just been jailed, have been jailed

Lol you got a long way to go if you think the Bible doesn’t contradict itself AND is compatible with science. I wish you well on your journey to deconstruction from brainwashing and childhood indoctrination.

You can’t just say “strawman” over and over again, you have to actually explain why I’m wrong and you’re right in order to win people over

The Bible does say it is the ultimate and final authority (Acts 17:11, 1 Corinthians 4:6, Mark 7:6-9, Revelation 22:18-19)

The Bible is very often opposed to science. It makes claims of creation, events, miracles, and resurrections all without evidence. This is antithetical to science, which requires evidence to prove a claim, especially such a grand claim of eternal torture, and the salvation from it. Every single biological and cosmological process has been observed without divine interference. The universe looks exactly as it would look if there was no god.

From the outside, all christian denominations are just pointing fingers at each other, failing to point the finger at the Bible that contradicted itself, made false promises, and threatened them eternal torture if they didn’t convince themselves of such unprovable nonsense.

If a person believes in an authoritative god who will either reward them with a blissful eternal afterlife or torture them for all eternity based on the decisions they make here on earth, then we can never truly trust their motives to be genuine can we? They’ll feed a homeless person or donate to charity all because they think it will raise their chances to get into Heaven and avoid hell, not because they wanted to do something good for the sake of it. They’ll also execute a gay person, hang a suspected witch, or vote against equal rights for the same reasons

Side question: if avoiding eternal torture hinges on believing this book, then why did god make it so unbelievable? Or as you put it: “difficult to comprehend”?

To my main point: the Bible did not say “the universe was created 14 billion years ago, the earth was formed 4 billion years ago, microbiological life formed in the ocean, where it replicated and evolved over billions of years to eventually become land based apes, where at a certain point god decided to give these apes divine souls and made them humans”. The Bible said god created the heavens and the earth, and created man on the sixth day. Man got deceived by a talking serpent, god got angry, and from those two people came all civilization less than 6000 years ago.

Cognitive Dissonance like this is the reason Bronze Age myths have survived so long. People are so desperate to hold onto their ancient beliefs, that as science continues invalidating them, they come up with increasingly complex explanations to hold onto their faith. FYI I was raised an evangelical christian and have read the Bible several times so I do in fact know everything the Bible says and why it says it

If an atheist gives his money or food to a homeless person, what reward is he expecting? What orders to be a decent person is he following? What punishment is he fearful of?

The Bible says Adam and Eve were created 6000 years ago, that’s why it’s the year 5783 in the Hebrew calendar, the years since creation.

And since Romans 5 makes it quite clear that the sole reason for Jesus’ sacrifice was Adam’s sin, and we know Adam and the garden didn’t exist, we can safely conclude that Jesus wasn’t resurrected either (as if we needed an actual reason to not believe a ridiculous claim that was made without evidence in the first place)

I don’t think religious people can possibly be truly moral, since everything they do is out of promise of reward and fear of punishment

Humans being created 6000 years ago is wildly against the theory of evolution. There is little evidence of even localized severe flooding, never mind flooding that covered the highest mountain tops

Ethics! And it’s an important topic because it is impossible to be ethical if your morality comes from an authority like religion.

If your morality comes from an authority such as religion, then all it takes is for you to be convinced that a heinous act against humanity and society is the will of god. Terrorism, slavery, treating women as property, etc, all happened because a holy book (The Bible and the Quran) said it was ok.

Ethics, or true morality without authority, demands that we treat each other with excellence simply because it is the right thing to do. It spreads love, happiness, and joy. Why? Who knows, maybe it’s an evolutionary trait showing how humanity chooses to survive, through cooperation and community. Or maybe it speaks to some deeper nature of reality, as if love itself is a fundamental force of the universe.

I would never trust someone who believed morality came from religion or an authoritative god character. They have proven time and time again that their morality is a thinly veiled excuse for control, abuse, prejudice, hatred, and violence.