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How would you respond to "You can't have true love without God"?

I'm sitting in church (still haven't come out to people) and the preacher is declaring that love is not real without God. My question is, How would you respond to "You can't have true love for people without God"?

Biblebeltskeptic 6 Sep 15
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118 comments

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1

Don't respond, quit going to church and being subjected to thier made up crap.

The church doesn't own anything, including love.

1of5 Level 8 Sep 15, 2019
8

@linxminx You're welcome.

I felt so sorry for the man who was struggling so much to understand but not able to.

8

I am all for threesomes. Is HE going to join us as man or a woman?

7

You mean after I finished laughing?

6

or the classical Agnostic answer for everything that includes god...

"Which god?"

Yes, true. But at a Fundamental Baptist Church, everyone assumed it's Yahweh.

@Biblebeltskeptic ok, now that we define a god and that the other person wants to go into a discussion...

You can go for the annoying "But what about the other gods of love? Why not cupidus?"

Or for the more rational
"Ok, now that we named a god, what evidence do you have that this god is real and the others are not?"

6

Where do they get the idea that god is love? Genocidal, sacrificial, misogynist, and many more. How is that love?

I couldn't agree more. How do they skip over that!! All the punishment are so over-the-top. I will never use the Bible for parenting advice!

5

I’d say that’s bullshit!

5

I would ask, "Without what?"

5

I won't . No reason for . He made a statement . Rude .
He did not asked any question , HE TOLD U GUYS what is gonna be , what it is .
Such ways to speak , such statements are not worthy of an answer in my book .

5

Methinks, he is actually incapable of true love and is desperately searching for it.

5

I would bluntly state: What utter nonsense. That assertion makes as much sense as stating, "You can't swim without learning to ride your bicycle." them ask them to try to define the characteristics of "true love" and have them justify why this condition is dependent on the existence of a god.

5

You REALLY need to come out! You need to stop abusing yourself.

What would I say? I'd say that is horse shit! What would I say in the middle of church services? Nothing!!! I wouldn't be there!

I was only there to see my mother-in-law. She has cancer and I wanted to cheer her up. But I was posting in agnostic.com during the altar call. 😛

Rick, though I agree coming out is liberating, coming from South Carolina and the mother of two children could make it difficult for her. She doesn’t need to be chastised for having a brain. This part of the country has a difficult time with reality.. I think it is very different for men.

@rpmazzella Amen!

5

What nonsense. If that was true how come God lets small children suffer or how come he "invented" this parasite that bores into children's eyes and makes them go blind, etc, etc. Ask that.

True. But every time something like that is brought up to them, they say that it's sin's curse. I was taught as a child that all bad things come from sin and Satan, and all good things come from God.

@Biblebeltskeptic That is even more nonsense of the highest kind because little children are not sinners.

@Jolanta, I agree. It is nonsense and it's a very dangerous way of thinking.

5

My late wife and I married at a Ministers house,and never in our 27 years of marriage attended any Churches,no major fights, some disagreements, but for the most part we got along very well.

Awesome!

5

Answer: which god? Odin? Zeus? Thor?

Haha, yeah. But this is a baptist Church, so everyone already assumed it's Yahweh. It's sad people believe this without a doubt.

@Biblebeltskeptic sad, but my answer was to your question not to what happened in the temple.

5

I understand people that haven’t come out as nonbelievers to family and friends but I don’t understand why that means you still have to go to church? Plenty of believers that don’t go.

4

But of course! If true love equals raping children.

zesty Level 7 Oct 10, 2019

@Grahame Don't be so judgemental, rather think a little. Lol. - The way I see it, the major activity of the clergy is centered on raping children.

@Grahame Don't call me arrogant you stupid zero IQ dogshit!

@Grahame scum misogynist like you are scaring our closet Atheist in Taylor S Carolina and insulting our truth telling Atheist Zesty.......this community is dedicated to building up Atheists and helping victims of religion.....perhaps you enjoyed being sexually molested by your priest ?

4

Sounds like an old cliché spoken by people with no self-esteem and who hate or reject themselves.

It's her parents preacher....she is an Atheist poor mom dependent upon parents for a place to live and babysitting

@GreenAtheist Hmmm, yes, I wouldn't suggest doing so, but it would be an excellent "test" of god's love in action.

Mom, Dad, ...I don't believe in god anymore.

GET OUT!!!!!!

4

I would respond that this is “absolutely ridiculous.”

4

The claim there is no "true love" is nonsense. Can you love without religion?

Can you poop without mayonnaise?

Non sequiturs. Religion didn't invent emotions. Social evolution and biological evolution did.

Keita Level 5 Sep 17, 2019
4

It depends on the person/circumstances but most likely I wouldn't even engage in such discussion

That comment was sent to me in a text by my brother, after I said, "Love you, bro". I guess I'm now incapable of loving my brother. Lol

@Biblebeltskeptic This is a very good example on who the person and/or circumstances... No matter what, your brother always will be your brother. You cannot control what he say/think but you can control how to react. It's your choice. I wouldn't argue with my siblings over any of this and boy do they try....

4

Actually true love comes from knowing oneself and understanding that there is no need for ethereal beings to have true love.

4

I wouldn’t waste my breath talking to someone that ignorant unless it were perhaps my mother, but hypothetically since another non believer is asking: I’d say you can’t have true love with god. If god is always first then you can’t love a person more than anything else, like I’m free to do. It’s also impossible to have true love for god. Your primary reasons for wanting to love god are always going to be that you’re afraid of eternal punishment if you don’t, and/or you’re convinced he made some kind of incredible sacrifice of himself for you. So you’ve been coerced and/or guilted into the feeling. Doesn’t sound like any true love I’d want to be apart of.

The even more objective standpoint is that no one thing called true love exists for anyone. It all has a selfish imperative as the end goal no matter how selfless the feeling seems. There are many kinds of love, and they all have a biological imperative. Agape, the loving kindness we have toward others, is apart of our instincts as social animals to cooperate and want to see each other do well because it’s good for us. Romantic love is a chemical trick of the brain to make you stick around and care for your partner and young as a smaller scale version of the cooperation needed to survive.

We are wired with an endogenous chemical reward system to give us a hit of the feel goods when we do something that promotes our survival. The same way exercise feels good, love is a function of our reproductive instincts. When some of us lose interest or cheat those are functions of our reproductive instincts just the same. No type of instinct is morally superior to another. They just are what they are. Religious people just like to think they have the only valid reason for fucking: to make more soldiers of the cross, which they so willingly like to rush to the front lines. Make sure to keep having those babies, cause it’s not love if you aren’t photocopying your mediocre ass. 😂

@LetzGetReal the desire to reproduce? Yeah I have no desire either, but the reason I have a high sex drive is evolutionarily still because of that drive to reproduce. Some people are asexual of course and have both no intellectual or instinctual urge to do anything remotely related to sexual activity and that’s fine too. Just speaking in the broadest generalizations, that’s what led to happy feelings being tied to sex for most of us. Of course “love” and the same reward system still exists without sex, it naturally feels good to be connected to and secure with someone no matter how those feelings express themselves. It’s still rewarded because those are cooperations conducive to survival.

4

Love is truer when no god is involved. 🙂

4

I would ignore it. Just as I ignore the ramblings of any idiot as long as they have no power. I learned long ago not to argue with people that want to define the terms of the debate on their terms only. It is like trying to teach a pig to sing, not only is it a waste of time, but it irritates the pig. Pick your battles, some are worth fighting, most are not.

I like that thumbnail picture. It's like taking God's words and inserting Atheist. But this time, it's true.

@Biblebeltskeptic I have used it for years, when defending my son who came out publicly as an atheist was the first time I used it publicly. I've had printed copies since at least the early 90s. Like many of my old prints, I have no idea where the originally came from.

4

How would they set about proving such a claim? It is as empty as any testamony that God lives and loves us or that the Bible is inerrant. It's also completely self serving, egotistical, and elitest.

Agreed! There's a book I want to read called "Alpha God". It's about the pattern of the evolutionary thinking of the authors of the Bible and how God in the Bible is depicted as an egotistical alpha male.

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