Art? Did you perhaps click the link in my sig, and you've looked at my beadwork and sculpture? If that's what you mean, thank you.
That's kind of you. If that's not what you meant, please explain?
I don't actually think you are bitter, Edge. But you hit me with a fallacy, so I hit back with the very same one, trying to show you through example that it's fallacious. I'm not actually angry, as you falsely accused me. I can
get angry, trust me, but so can we all.
And I'm certainly not angry at god. Not anymore. Do you know when I was angry at him? I was furious with god
when I still believed he was real. Once I realized my god and all the gods were invented by people, the anger at it vanished immediately.
Anger at real people, now...that's another matter entirely.
What's difficult about your stance? I've been in it. It's not difficult at all.
You simply claim that god exists, and that's where you can leave it. What's difficult about it?
This is a lie, and a cruel one.
Not one time did Jesus ever stop my ex-husband's hand as it swung towards my face, my head, or my body. Not once. And believe me, I was begging him to stop it as hard as I could beg.
But Jesus
always let that man hit me. As much as he liked. Jesus even let him force me to my knees and beat me in the head with a bible while screaming at me to "submit! submit!" Jesus never once stopped that, either.
I've gone hungry. Praying for food did not feed me.
I've gone most of my life without medical or dental care. Praying for healing has never healed me.
I've been scared, and hurt, and sad, and lonely. Prayer never amended any of those states. Prayer is simply wishing.
Wishing doesn't work. Ask any child.
I would too, but death is what we get. It's not so bad, though. We won't know it, won't be aware of it, any more than we were aware of it before we were born.
I've always been the best person I can be. I don't need to imagine some punisher god to insure my morality. I'm still a fine person. I don't commit crimes, I'm good to children and puppies, and I forgive my enemies. No god required. Those are the right things to do, the right way to live, and I manage them just fine without any god involved at all.
Nope, it's not a "Jewish thing." I was brought up as an Charismatic Evangelical Fundamentalist Christian. Fear of god was very high up on the list. The biggest reason to believe and worship was the threat of eternal hellfire, pain, torment, and torture if you didn't.
At any rate, what about the part where if god reveals himself as a real entity, it would remove our free will to reject him? I've shown the opposite is actually the case. That believing in and obeying an entity you can't confirm is robotic, and not an expression of your actual will. Especially since you have to be threatened into obedience. That's the whole point of hell: to scare you into behaving.
So.
A messenger shows up at your house with a book of instructions, stories, lessons, and commands to be obeyed, and tells you that you
have to read this book and obey what's written there. The author of the book will never reveal himself to you or to anyone else. You can never confirm his existence, or his authority, but must simply accept both are true. If you do all this, you will earn a great reward from the author, sometime in the future. If you do not do all this, the author will punish you brutally, without mercy, also at sometime in the future. You are not allowed to meet the author, nor will he ever call you or write to you, beyond the contents of that book. You have no way of knowing this person even exists. You cannot question him, cannot challenge him, cannot even clarify your instructions with him.
Now. Exercise your free will. Do you obey, blindly, from that moment on? Or do you say, "When you can prove any of this is even real, we might talk. Until then, no, thanks," and shut your door?
Which one makes you the robot?
