Where is the best place to have a potentially offensive religious discussion?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. I think all forms of Christianity are irrational.

You cannot point out the contradictions in the Bible. If you quote the verses directly, then you have cut and pasted from "an obviously biased source". I have tried this and they refuse to discuss them at all. AT ALL. Don't bother.



All Christians on this site, in my experience, refuse to discuss or explain the many contradictory verses in the Bible. They say Jesus was all about being good to people, and when I quote "I come not in peace, but with a sword. I have come to set apart [family members, giving several examples]", I get stupid excuses like "It's a metaphor" or "He wasn't talking about families, he was talking about some other tribe" or such crap. Jesus was apparently quite good at saying cruel and hateful things, but not a single Christian will discuss the problems with the multitudes of inconsistencies in the Bible. It's a great big mental block.

All three of the Abrahamic religions have contradictory rules in them.

I've told them how the doctrine of original sin absolutely destroys many peoples' self-esteem, by holding up an impossible standard. And original sin comes out of a book of fairy tales, the story of Adam and Eve, which never happened. Original sin is an imaginary problem, that is solved by an unneeded and un-provable solution, substitutionary atonement, which is the death of Jesus on the cross. I had to get the strength up to walk away from church.

Being preached at on Sunday that you are a worthless sinner makes some people suicidal. Yet, the concept of original sin, which is the starting premise of Christianity, is something that all the Christians I have talked to on this site have said "Oh, we don't believe in that. We can believe anything we want." More bullshit.

The analogy I use is: You have dandruff. Everyone has dandruff because they were born with it. Therefore, everyone MUST use this special shampoo, which will remove dandruff. It is the only shampoo you are allowed to use because of its dandruff-removing properties.

The dandruff is original sin and the shampoo is Jesus. They dodge that one too.

I took a couple of excellent religion courses in college and found out what a mess put together by a committee the Bible is. It was put together under orders of the Emperor Constantine at the Council of Trent in 400-something A.D., and various doctrines were added and removed. Constantine wanted to have one official religion to unify his empire.

Also, there is no historical evidence that Jesus was a real person. He is a fabrication of several other ancient gods such as Osiris, Mithra and Apollo. There was no census in Bethlehem. Christopher Hitchens covers this quite well in a YouTube video.

I am wondering why you would waste your time worrying about which sect of Christianity agrees with what percent of another sect of Christianity or cult or whatever you want to call it. It's brainwashing that is harmful. All authority figures fail in some way. Some people ignore it. Others explain it away. Still others are disillusioned enough to walk away and start speaking out against it.

I have a law degree too (South Texas College of Law, Houston) and I am infuriated with the amounts of bullshit that most people tolerate in their daily lives, be it religion or any other area.

If I want to read writings about how to get along better in this world from a philosophical perspective, I read Buddhism. I specifically like Mahayana (Chinese ) Buddhism. There is nothing in what Buddha said where the monks had to say "Oh, you shouldn't read that because the Buddha said something hateful." Buddha was asked about gods and said they were irrelevant. He said that he wanted to teach people how to get along with each other.

Or just read some stoic or rationalist philosophy; it will serve you much better than the fairy tales of Christianity.