In Reply to: Re: Serious Defect in Jesus' Moral Character posted by MG on June 19, 2007 at 00:55:31:
I've become used to those kinds of posts from Farmer. Extremely judgmental based
on erroneous assumptions; a patriarchal and condescending attitude telling me
what I should do; ad hominem arguments; etc.
For me, it all comes down to believing based on faith, or believing based on
evidence. The very definition of faith is believing without evidence or logical
proof.
I once was a blind faith believer, for a lot longer than Farmer has assumed. I
now see the error of my ways, convinced in part by the myriad crimes against
humanity committed by believers, and I now believe a thing to be so or not so
based on reasonable consideration of evidence.
Having considered the evidence, I see no reason whatsoever to believe in God.
How extremely foolish, it now seems to me, that I once believed on faith alone.
Not just foolish, but extremely dangerous as it led me straight into Berg's
warped cult. But I was primed for that trap very nicely by the cultural
deference to religious groups, the Bible, and my Catholic upbringing.
In my various posts to Farmer and Don, I have tried to express my view that what
they call love, I call hate. Their light is darkness, in my opinion. I tried to
illustrate that with the simple example of Jesus' exclusive and so-called loving
message, which includes divine retribution and punishment for those who refuse
it.
Farmer expresses pity for me, yet it is they that seem pitiful to me, groping
in the dark to make sense of ancient and dubious scripture that, as we all here
have seen, can be twisted to justify pretty much any immoral, harmful,
destructive action.