понеделник, 1 юли 2019 г.

Bible Arguments 6

By DeYtH Banger


"That’s right. This is great news, because since you have been ignoring me all these years, and have not been giving me the proper respect I deserve, you have made me very upset. I become an angry person when I am not honored, when my loving character is not appreciated.

So, I built a torture chamber down in my basement.
It’s dark and hot down there, with sharp knives and chains and hooks on the walls, and a furnace with flames, and some smelly vats with caustic Lake-of-Fire chemicals. It’s horrible. But the good news is that you don’t have to go down there.
I sent my son down there.
It was ugly. It was horrific. My only-begotten son experienced an agony of suffering and shame.
But that satisfied my anger, and I’m not mad any more. It is finished. And that is great news for you! All you have to do is come up here on my porch and thank my bleeding son for what he did for you. Tell him you love him."

- Dan Barker

"“What is the life of life?” That question is based on a belief that life, like a tool, has no internal purpose of its own. If you don’t have the freedom to choose to strive for your own goals, then you are not really alive. You are a hammer. If you think your purpose must come from outside yourself, you are a lifeless implement or a slave to another mind.
And that is exactly what most religions teach. The so-called good news of Christian ity, for example, cheats its followers with the sleight of hand of trading purpose for purpose, euthanizing the individual by cutting out the heart of life and implanting it elsewhere. It turns a living creature into a dead shell."

- Dan Barker

"“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”3 He told believers to “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”4 Those words were written by a man who called himself a “slave” of Christ: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ
who lives in me.”5 “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”6 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”7
In Christianity, you have to die so that someone else can live through you."

- Dan Barker

"Rick Warren, best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life, agrees with Paul and Jesus. He has sold tens of millions of books worldwide to worshipful believers who have been conned into thinking that life is not life..."

- Dan Barker

"He has convinced his flock that it is actually good to be a slave. For political reasons, the fame he has achieved as a shepherd preaching sheephood got him invited to offer the opening prayer at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration. What an irony that the most important civic ritual belonging to all Americans, the swearing in of our secular president, had to be “solemnized” by a superstitious sermonizer who believes that the authority of our nation stems not from we, the people, in pursuit of happiness, but from the sovereignty of a “Lord” who dictates that we must submit to his will because a talking snake tricked us into eating the fruit of knowledge."

- Dan Barker

"Warren’s entire book; others have already done that. Robert M. Price’s book, The Reason Driven Life, neatly exposes the fact that The Purpose Driven Life is nothing more than newly packaged old-fashioned biblical fundamentalism."

- Dan Barker

"Before he became wealthy selling sanctimonious self-help (the “self” not being the reader), he was charged with abusing the IRS tax code. In the early 1990s, his church had paid all or a substantial part of his salary as a cash “housing allowance,” allowing him to report little or no income, taking advantage of a little-known, unfair provision in the statutes that allows “ministers of the gospel” to exclude their rent or house payments from income, greatly lowering their tax liability.8 What Warren did was clearly wrong—he was excluding his entire salary as if he were spending it all on housing. He was cheating the rest of us taxpayers. But since the law was ambiguously stated, not setting a limit to the allowance, he did not have to pay penalties or back taxes. Congress mooted the case in 2002, getting Warren off the hook, but clarifying that from now on the housing allowance is limited to the fair rental value of the home.9 This pastor, like most clergy, apparently feels that preachers are a privileged class. His parishioners might have a purpose-driven life, but their leader has a loophole-driven life."

- Dan Barker


"he means it only in its secondary usage. “It’s not about you,” he preaches. It’s all about God. He believes you have no say in your own purpose. “His purpose for your life predates your conception,” Warren confidently informs us, speaking about the specific deity depicted in his holy book. “He planned it before you existed, without your input! You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life, but you don’t get to choose your purpose.”
Warren is exactly right, if you think the Christian scriptures are true. The New Testament tells Christians that they have no purpose of their own: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”10 Jesus reportedly said: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”1"

- Dan Barker

"You are a hammer. A wrench. A pair of pliers.
Warren then insults atheists by insisting that those of us who do not hold his beliefs lead empty lives: “Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”13 What planet is Reverend Warren living on? It seems…he hasn’t met many atheists. He doesn’t know that hundreds of millions of good people do not “begin with God,” do not believe in a god, yet live full meaningful lives. We are not the ones with the problem! We are alive. We think it is sad that so many human beings pretend to have no purpose of their own, that they are so willing to “die to themselves” (as the bible commands), submitting to someone else’s plan for their lives."

- Dan Barker

"It is directed from outside your own life. “Whatever you do,” Paul also wrote, “do all to the glory of God.”15 Christians are toddlers who simply do what the parent says, “bringing every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ.”16 (The next time someone tells you there is freedom in Christ, read that verse to them. Whatever “captivity” is, it is not freedom.) In Christianity, the ultimate purpose is to glorify and worship the master, not to live or enjoy your own life. Even good works—which you would think should be aimed at the recipients of charity—are ultimately focused on the majesty of the heavenly father: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”17 The biblical writers were shameless about this redirection of purpose: “If I was trying to please men,” Paul wrote, “I would not be a slave of Christ."

- Dan Barker

"What is wrong with this picture? We normally detest a person who claims to own and control other human beings, so why do we think it is admirable when God does it? Because might makes right? Why do we honor that which we naturally despise? If you were a god, would you actually want others to bow down and kiss your feet? And what would the rest of us think of you? If there actually exists a praise-thirsty deity like the bible describes, then why should we worship him? Because he is the big boss and he demands it? Because if you don’t put your hands together and tell him how great he is you will be sent down into the basement?

Would you rather watch a movie about loyal captive subjects in the service of their omnipotent master, or a movie about a slave revolt? Which would be more exciting? What characters would you root for and sympathize with? So, why just a movie? Why not make your own life a slave revolt?"

- Dan Barker

"Asking, “If there is no God, what is the purpose of life?” is like asking, “If there is no Master, whose slave will I be?” If the purpose of life is to become a submissive slave, then your meaning comes from flattering the ego of a person whom you should despise."

- Dan Barker

"Here is the good news we atheists offer to the world:
There is no purpose of life.
It may sound counterintuitive, but that is truly great news! Life is its own reward. You should not want there to be a purpose of life. You are not a subject. You don’t have an assignment to live up to. You don’t have a cosmic task to accomplish. You don’t have a duty to fulfill. You are not being managed or judged by an overlord. Unshackled from the chains of a master, you are truly free to live…"

- Dan Barker

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