Jesus Christ (real or not?)

8limbs got it...all I said was the crucifixion was NOT predicted

 

That IS your argument....a loving, kind and benevolent god inflicts famine, disease and pain on billions and let's others live entirely without hardship

Then he says "love me"

After making a wasp burst out a Caterpillars head or a fly larvae eat a monkey alive until it dies a slow, painful death

Love? Not even close.....

 

Parasitoid wasps are among the most interesting groups of animals in my opinion. Broadly speaking they can be classified into two functional groups (these don't necessarily reflect ancestry): either the generalists or the specialists. Specialists are born knowing where to find caterpillars/spiders/etc. but generalists need to learn to associate their prey with the smell of the food that their prey feeds on. So if you eat caterpillars you form an association between caterpillars and the smell of say, lavender. The US military figured this was a good chemical weapons detection system and taught them to associate the smell of bombs with caterpillars and bing, bang, boom, you've got a weapons detection system.

 

So, if this world, on the edge of a galaxy that is amongst billions more galaxies, was set up by the big sky daddy just to teach us a lesson why did God choose not to give the vast majority of his children even a chance at getting into heaven? Out of all the humans that ever walked the earth, only a small fraction have ever heard the name Jesus, let alone got a chance to be baptised in his name.

What about people who have no free will and do bad things? Get hit by a drunk driver, receive a frontal lobe injury, and you could be shouting sexual filth at grannies and trying to punch your nurse through no fault of your own.

When did God give humans souls? I mean, we know that the evolutionary journey to becoming homo sapiens was a gradual process, and also that our cousins have impressive social intelligence, so when did God decide we had enough free will to be judged by our decisions?

Actually, that is all wrong. Hitting children makes them more violent and anti-social. I guess the bible's right; you do reap what you sow!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/

God is the first cause of all creation, omnipotent and omniscient. So yes, God does give children cancer, because he created nature. God also murders foetuses in the womb and drowns puppies and kittens. Mysterious ways indeed.

I think the only rational guess at a personality behind a creator like this would be that of a sadistic child with an ant farm. Given that, we can expect that he would lie about heaven just to get attention and trick us into wasting our lives in servitude to the sick old pervert.

 

You might do that but I don't (although like many parents, on occasion, children can really push your buttons and test you).
You want your kids to "fear" you!?! Really? I find that desire utterly bizarre and, to be honest, repugnant.
I've never hit my kids and, patience willing, never will. And yet they are, for the most part, well mannered, polite and are aware of other people's feelings.
AND...they've never had a strong christian indoctrination either (although there's some CofE stuff at school that is very hard to avoid in the UK).

If you look at the sort of people that attack or rob other people I can tell you that it's not because they didn't get hit enough when they were kids. Quite the opposite in fact. Most of them have been battered from day one and are therefore well acquainted with violence.

I treat my kids as if they are actually people rather than my possessions. I can't go around hitting other people so I can't go around hitting my kids either.

 

Anyway, getting back to Jesus...

Yes, there probably was a bloke that vaguely fits the description. However, between Paul wanting to chill out the rebellious Jews fighting Rome for their freedom and the Romans deciding to shake things up with a Mithras soft reboot, it's unlikely we'll ever know what he actually did. It becomes even worse when the Roman empire fails militarily and turns into a parasitic Stasi-esque real estate cabal. Burning books, waging genocidal war, a mythic foundation based on exceptionalism and dehumanisation... the usual stuff from the bottom of the barrel of human behaviour.

I like the theory that Jesus was at the head of a political group, but then he turned all wacky and messianic and started talking about giving money to the Caesar so Judas killed him because he was ruining the cause they had dedicated their lives to.

 

Yes, they will fear you to a certain extent, simply because they don't want to be spanked. I'm not talking about the type of fear victims had in the Saw movies. They will fear you simply because they will know, that if they misbehave they might get a spanking. I'm not talking about some kind of petrifying evil torture that will scar them for life. Or a fear so petrifying and intense that it would cause them to have PTSD. I'm all against abuse.

This is the same way they can fear you, because they know you can take away their privileges such as watching cartoons, or going outside to play. It is a healthy fear for their own good. If you choose not to spank your children, that is your business, I wouldn't recommend it though.

I don't have any children, but I was a child once. and I remember being spanked.

 

I'll link to this again, seeing as you've yet to read it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/

Hitting children makes them more violent and anti-social compared to not hitting children. Corporal punishment achieves the exact opposite of its intent, and gives parents and children alike heartache in the process. It is a waste of time and detrimental to society.

Your anecdotal evidence of being a child that was spanked counts for nothing because it is a sample of one with no control.

 

I have a doctors apt to go to. ill read it in a little while.

 

Maybe it's just me but I want my kids to behave well because it's the right and nice thing to do. Not because they fear the consequences of not being nice.
I think it's no coincidence that a christian would try to instill good behaviour through fear rather than setting a good example. I think I read that sort of schtick in a big book one time.

Yeah...I'll take your recommendation with a pillar of salt.

 

You have ZERO E experience in this amd have no basis or validity to ANY of the things you are supporting

Stop using this as an analogy because you have no clue what you are talking about and it is undermining your points

 

Back in the early eighties when corporal punishment was still acceptable at my catholic school I was enthusiastically thrashed with a cane by my 6' 3" headmaster. The violence is not only physical but mental - a form of subjugation by rule of law.
I can't say it was an effective method of controlling behaviour , the main effect was to teach me from an early age the hypocrisy of those who preached love and forgiveness while using their position of authority to beat me into submission.
Like Smitfire I would never dream of hitting my children and consider it a failure to spend enough time , care and effort in upbringing. It is a loss of control by an adult to raise their hand to a child , which is normally passed down the line.

 

I have much experience in being spanked as a child. I was the first child and was also under much stricter discipline than my brother and sister that came after me. I don't remember my brother or sister ever being spanked. They kind of stopped the spanking punishment after the 2nd oldest was born. And let's just say I have witnessed how they have grown up and what they have grown up to be like.

 

By your logic you should never discipline your children in any kind of way. The only proper thing to do based on what you said is REWARD good behavior, but never PUNISH bad behavior. And if that's how you do things more power to you. I personally don't believe in this form of child raising.

 

I'm about to read this now.

 

Once you read the link I posted you'll see that the argument is not fallacious. You can control for whatever factor you like and corporal punishment will still be shown to produce an increased tendency to violence and anti-social behaviour.

 

I didn't say spanking causes crimes. Just that the answer to people behaving badly isn't "they didn't get hit enough when they were kids...more hitting!".

I never mentioned not punishing. My children get sent to their rooms, sent to bed early, have nice things and activities restricted or extra jobs and chores to do if they do things we deem unacceptable. Boundaries are set and repercussions used.
What my kids don't get is physically hit (assaulted basically) as they learn what is acceptable and what is not. We don't normalise striking other people as an answer to problems or as a form of punishment.
They don't fear that their parents will cause them physical pain.
They are taught that striking someone is only acceptable in order to defend themselves or others from harm. Just like the law says we should behave.

I just cannot see how you teach a child not to hit other children and then hit them for doing things you deem wrong without being a massive hypocrite.

 

Never have kids