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Catholic church canonises its first gamer saint, and one of his favourite games was Halo
(www.pcgamer.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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Then that god stops existing because there's no evidence for a god which acts like that
There's no evidence for God period, so your "because" doesn't support your statement. Of course you also don't seem to understand basic logic. The lack of evidence never "proves" anything. The presence of evidence "may" prove things.
There is no evidence for the god you believe in, you are correct.
Can't tell if terrible troll or actual moron
¿Por qué no los dos?
Do sure the evidence for the god you believe in.
https://youtu.be/vQKxoBpV2NE
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TW70EEo4e2onJ4lq1QYSzrY
My man, following your logic this means that Buddhism is real because Siddhartha Gautama, Islam is real because the prophet Muhammad, and Mormonism is real because Joseph Smith's lying ass. Just because a historical figure claims there's a god does not mean that it's actual evidence that a god exists.
Weigh it up. Mohammed was lying because he wanted more wives and political power. Joseph Smith was the same. Jesus got merked for his teachings and so did his followers for the first three hundred years.
Couldn't Jesus have been lying for political power? That is what his fellow Jews and the Romans accused him of. Joseph Smith was "merked" and his followers persecuted for their faith, does that make their beliefs true?
You can't selectively apply logic to your perspective alone. I'm not denying your beliefs, just the logic that you use to argue their validity.
The reason they call it faith is because it is something you believe in despite not being able to offer any proof. You have faith, not knowledge that what you believe is true. Imo that's fine, but you can't have faith in something and then force your beliefs on others, claim them to be definitive truth, or deny other people their own beliefs.
Matthew 20:20-28 ESV
John 6:14-15 ESV
Jesus was not looking for political power.
Joseph Smith wasn't merked for his faith. He was merked for burning down a printing press.
First of all..... The Bible is not a primary source, it wasn't even a contemporary source when first written down, which was at least a century after his death.
Secondly, demagogues and those who follow them don't exactly announce their true motivations. So it doesn't really make sense to use their own claims as evidence of their innocence.
Lastly, I could just as easily claim Jesus was not killed for his faith, but because he destroyed a temple....
You aren't exactly making the most logical arguments here.
How do you define "primary source"? The section I quoted was written by someone who knew Jesus personally
Not at least, the latest... If you're charitable. According to secular scholars, the latest Gospel of John which I quoted was written 60-70 years after Jesus was crucified. That is definitely contemporary for accounts at this point in history. A lot of what we know about other people were written down centuries after.
Okay then, do you have any evidence on the contrary? That those weren't His motivations?
What temple did He destroy? The temple was destroyed in 70AD
It's a reinterpretation of oral accounts passed down decades after the deaths of the people it's about, and was first attributed to John nearly 180 years later. The gospel of John was first authored anonymously around 90-100ad and attributed to John by Irenaeus in 185ad
Not really, contemporary sources are generally limited to people involved with the actual history.
When combined with other contextual sources.
I'm not the one making the claim that other religions are wrong and Christianity is true. Do you have evidence that Joseph Smith, Muhammad, or Buddha had alternative motives?
I meant the first time..... Not literally destroyed, but trashed, fucked dudes up, flipped tables.
90-100ad isn't decades after the death of people it's about.
And it wasn't authored anonymously.
John 21:20-25 ESV
That this disciple reclined with Jesus and was at the crucifixion and resurrection.
John 13:23 ESV
John 19:25-26 ESV
John 20:2-5
So this is clearly a primary source.
More reasoning for narrowing it down to John can be found here.
It also makes sense that somebody would know who wrote the Gospel. The authorship of the Gospels were never disputed in the early Church despite geographic spread. So that doesn't mean that Irenaeus (A student of Polycarp who was a disciple of John) made it up
Which the writer of John clearly was.
There are four detailed accounts of Jesus.
Mormonism has been debunked by the finding of the "original" papyrus to one of their scriptures. The Qur'an claims to be in agreement with the Bible yet contradicts the hell out of it. Mohammed and JS had numerous wives because "god told me" and Mohammed was a warlord, JS tried to set up "deseret"
I'm guessing you are claiming the John lives to be nearly a hundred years old? Even though there is no evidence to support this....
Yes... It was. He did not assign his name or identify himself as the author. Most people believe him to be the author through contextual clues as you suggested. These contextual clues first put forth in 185ad have shaped the ways people reintertpred and translated the Bible every since.
John did not write it.... He may have orally transferred the story to someone who later wrote it down after the time of his death. You're working off of assumptions that are highly disputable.
From his own cadra of followers...... That's like saying everything scientology claims about L Ron Hubbard is true because it was witnessed by 4 different scientologist.
And all Christian text are non contradictory.....? There haven't been any ancient scripts found about Christianity that the church hasn't adopted?
If John was, let's say 16 at the time of Jesus' crucifixion in 33 AD, then he'd be 83 years old if it was written in 100 AD. A reasonable age. I'm not disputing the possibility of a scribe.
Evidence that John wrote John would be evidence to support this.
You've got no evidence to support this than an argument from silence. That is the earliest RECORDED evidence. And from that time frame, that's pretty damn close. Historians accept Julius Caesar was born in Suburra, yet the earliest record of that was written by Suetonius, around 200 years after the fact.
Then there's Alexander the great - born in 300 BC but the records of his biography we use were written in the second century AD, by Arrian and Plutarch.
You're the one working off of assumptions
So you're basically asking me to find you sources documenting the resurrection of Jesus Christ from people who didn't believe it happened? Don't you realise how silly of a proposition that is? That, and whenever someone were to propose someone like Josephus, you'll just cry "Christian interpolation", while most people are crying that using circular reasoning that he mustn't have written about it because "someone can't rise from the dead". We'd have to throw out almost everything we know about Julius Caesar with that logic as it was either written by him or someone in his country at the time.
There have been. Are you talking about non Christian sources? stating that the Church was "adopting everything someone wrote about Jesus"
Ahh yes, let's make wild assumptions that fit my own narrative...
"I'm not disputing the possibility of a scribe."
Eusebius's argument was an ongoing debate between scholars in the early church. However it's widely recognized as how the church canonized John the apostle as the author.
No they largely do not. In most histories they say he was born in Rome, some go as far as saying likely in Suburra, but that's more of an inference as his family was known to be impoverished.
Suetonius is historically valuable, but known as a bit of a gossip, and prone to hearsay.
Yes, but those were written from lost primary and contemporary sources from people like Ptolemy, Aristobulus, and in some cases the king's journal.
You're claiming the new testament that the new testament didn't first get passed down by oral tradition?
No, just saying that you can't use biased sources to make claims about his motivation.
I have no idea what you are trying to accuse me of?
Being in the same country as someone is not the same as being in the same cult as someone..... Also, plenty of people doubt the accuracy of Caesars commentary on the Gaelic wars. Especially like with most ancient commentaries about the size of opposing armies.
I'm saying that just saying that all religions pick and choose their own doctrine. It's not like the church adopted the gospel of Mary.
In your land, an 83 year old dude writing something is a "wild assumption". ok.
You know what a scribe is... Right? Someone who sits with you as you dictate to them? You know a lot of news report articles about people aren't actually written by that person, but a journalist themselves.... And even then, a scribe is more reliable than a journalist 🤦
Eusebius was quoting Clement of Alexandria from AD 150...
So like what Esebius wrote, and what was likely composed by Luke the Evangelist in his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
Yes, because within the timeframe it was written in. The likes of Mark and Luke would have had those aspects, possibly some in Matthew, but even then, oral tradition isn't unreliable and it takes centuries for supernatural claims and legends to show up.
In this case, anything arguing in favour or showing the resurrection of Christ is automatically "biased" by your definition. It's like arguing with someone about global warming who doesn't trust scientists or the scientific method - Any science you do show them they dismiss as "biased" because they don't trust scientists. In the same way, if anyone believed that Jesus rose again, they'd rationally be a Christian. You dismiss this as "biased" because they were a Christian. Or if someone who wasn't a Christian wrote something that did defend it, then it must be interpolated because of the "bias".
If the Gospels were biased, they wouldn't have had bad stories about their leaders at the time. Such as peter denying Jesus, Peter cutting off a dude's ear and Jesus rebuking him, or James and John trying to get priority status in Glory.
Irrational thinking. The argument for Christian interpolation is basically "Josephus couldn't have written it, as Jesus didn't rise from the dead"
Because those gnostic texts were known forgeries.
What reason would have they had to pick and choose the four Gospels over the gnostic texts anyway?
What makes you assume he's 83? The only thing informing your assumptions are your conclusions. He must be the author, so he must have lived to 100ad, which means he must have been 16 when Jesus died.....
A scribe can also be some writing down an oral tradition.....
Clement was born in 150ad..... Eusebius utilized different sources to propose that there were at least two different johns. John the apostle who he supposed wrote the book of John and Presbyter John, who he believed wrote revelations.
"is widely agreed amongst Biblical scholars that accounts of Jesus's teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written gospels"
No, if we had records from the Romans claiming the guy they crusified a couple days ago is back....that would be a source from outside his fellowship.
Lol, you are comparing magic to the scientific method?
You don't have to trust science, science is repeatable, it's self explanatory.... If I saw someone who was publicly executed and then I saw them again three days later, I wouldn't automatically think they're the son of God. I would rationally think it's a different dude posing as him, or that they didn't actually kill him.
If scientology was biased they wouldn't have bad stories about their leaders at the time.......
Still have no idea what you are babbeling about?
How so? The earliest evidence of the gospel of Mary is from the 3rd century and was thought to be written in the 2nd.
Because it didn't fit within church doctrine.
This is a pretty reasonable assumption? No?
That's not what I was referring to at all. It would be silly to think I was in the context I was talking about John writing John.
The writer of John still identifies himself as being at the crucifixion and last supper anyway. That's a different debate over who wrote revelation.
Did you just quote Wikipedia? The admins on there are neckbeards such as Tgeorgescu who basically had a "no Christian apologists" rule which is impossible, because any historian who argues something that is pro Christianity, they are automatically labelled a "Christian apologist".
The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3 From The Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston
Are these in actual Scientology "scriptures"?
So not the first....
And how did they establish doctrine?
Interesting. None of that is evidence that God exists. Without a doubt, someone going by the name Jesus (or something like it lost in translation) existed. And a religion was founded based on him. Lots of things happened. People wrote down a lot of things. But those people all had a bias. The vast majority were trying to build a religion. So without a doubt, they embellished and picked the "witness" accounts that supported what they wanted to say.
As for the 3 famous figures mentioned at the start. The same is true. Historians often say that we don't know the real truth, just what was written.
As for the new testament. It was created by commitee. They hand picked stories and such that created the picture they wanted to present. And plenty of religious historians have pointed out that Christianity borrowed concepts and stories that worked well from previous religions.
So all that proves is that a human being going by the name Jesus existed and had a very influential life. It proves nothing of God.
What committee?
I see. Focusing on the least relevant thing I said to avoid the main point that you can't contest. Thanks for confirming that.
As for the committee... how do you think the new testament came into being. Some person collected all the writing he liked and declared it the new testament. Then everyone else said sure... we would like to buy a copy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_New_Testament_canon
By the time it came into being, the church was an organization with power. Such an organization always draws ambitious humans who crave that power and influence. The new testament was crafted to help grow that power and influence.
It is very likely in my opinion that Jesus never even claimed to be the son of god. Probably he was a very charismatic person who actually cared about the well being of people. And so he got popular with the people. Which is why he had to be killed. Then ambitious people leveraged him and his popularity to get what they wanted. Several other modern religions took a similar road.
Plenty of evidence for god killing whoever the fuck he wants because he feels like it.
Source: the bible
Okay, and? God creates, He can destroy what He made as well.
You moved the goalposts lol.
You said "there's no basis for that" I countered with "yes there is" You countered "so"
So, you're wrong. Also,
My partner and I made our son.
We now have a moral basis for killing him whenever we feel like it.
No, you're not reading the whole message. What I was referring to was "you should stop wasting time in church and just be a good person"
No you didn't. God gave you a son.
Yes, I know what you were referring to, I know how nested comments work.
Now, what I was referring to was:
Now, you want to claim that God would not kill people for not going to church.
Cool, but even if he DID. It STILL wouldn't be on the top 10 most fucked up things which HIS OWN BOOK says he did, or has plans to do. Not even including the moral imperative to kill whoever the fuck he wants because 'he created them' (what even is this argument...)
But i digress;
No, bro, I'm almost certain I was the one who got my partner pregnant.
My partner and I did make our son lol, ive got DNA evidence.
If you want to claim God gave me a son, then you'll first have to convince me God exists.
Can you do that?
God wouldn't kill people for going to church. That's what I said.
Yeah because such a list would be empty
So you drew out the schematics? decided what hair to put where? Pieced each bone into it's place? Set the colour of his eyes? Drew out his fingerprints? Laid down each muscle and wired each nerve?
Can you be convinced? What evidence would you expect to have to convince you? Some people cannot be convinced that the earth is round, that climate change is real, evolution is a real observable process of nature or that vaccines are safe and effective.
Empty? You’ve clearly never read your own book. Here’s just a taste:
The Flood – God drowns almost every human, animal, and child on Earth (Genesis 7).
The Plagues of Egypt – including killing the firstborn of every Egyptian family (Exodus 12:29).
Ordering Genocide – wiping out the Amalekites, including infants and animals (1 Samuel 15:3).
Lot’s Wife – turned to salt for the crime of looking back (Genesis 19:26).
Killing Kids for Mockery – sending bears to maul 42 children for calling Elisha “baldy” (2 Kings 2:23-24).
Hardening Pharaoh’s Heart – deliberately making him resist so God could “show His power” by killing more people (Exodus 9:12).
Jephthah’s Daughter – forced human sacrifice of his own child to fulfill a vow to God (Judges 11:30-39).
David’s Census Punishment – God slaughters 70,000 Israelites because David counted them (2 Samuel 24:15).
Job’s Torture – God lets Satan kill Job’s children and ruin his life as part of a bet (Job 1-2).
Eternal Hellfire – condemning billions of people to infinite torture for finite “sins” (Matthew 25:46).
No, and neither did God. That’s the point. I provided DNA, biology did the rest. By your logic, I didn’t "make dinner" unless I forged the cutlery and mined the iron for the stove. Dumb standard.
Can God? Unless you can prove he exists, you’re just putting a holy sticker on a process we understand down to the molecule.
Yeah, flat earthers, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers... and theists.
Here's the thing though, if I cannot be convinced, whose fault is that?
Because I don't believe in god that means I'll go to hell, right?
Why is it that the benchmark for being accepted into heaven is throwing away epistemic and logical foundations?
Why is it fair to throw me to down to hell because those specific qualities are universally valuable EXCEPT for when we use them to evaluate whether its reasonable to believe in God without evidence?
Doesn't God know the future? Doesn't God know that every condition that led me to this moment would cause me to reject any answer you've got for me?
Doesn't that mean he set me up to fail?
That is REALLY fucking stupid. Like, literally, definitionally stupid.
Everything you've listed are instances of God punishing evil. Are you suggesting God should let Hitler reign free in heaven without punishment? If that's the casewould you then complain that God isn't punishing evil? In many cases, you find instances of Atheists both complaining that evil currently exists, and then gets mad when it is punished! What a contradiction.
Where did DNA come from? Who made biology?
You made dinner with your creativity. You designed it. Is it cruel to the dinner that you will eat it and boil it in your stomach acid?
One can prove, but if you're unwilling to accept proof, then that's a different story.
Who designed that process? And do we really understand it? Atheists cannot even answer at what point human life begins.
That’s not "punishing evil". that’s cosmic tantrums.
If a human did it, you’d call it evil.
You only excuse it because you slap "God" on the front. That’s divine command theory. might makes right. Which isn’t morality, it’s just fear dressed up as worship. Ironically, its the same logic which fascists like Hitler use.
Strawman. Nobody said "let Hitler into heaven".
But drowning toddlers and nuking towns isn’t "justice", it’s indiscriminate slaughter. If God’s only two settings are "do nothing" or "kill everyone" that’s a design flaw, not justice.
Same tired "who made X" game.
Who made God?
If you say "He always existed", then congratulations, you just admitted things can exist without being created. Which means biology doesn’t need your sky-dad either.
False analogy.
My dinner isn’t a conscious being. If I invited you over and drowned your kid in my soup "to punish evil" you wouldn’t call it dinner. You’d call the cops.
(Furthermore, I'm vegan, so my meals don't include anything which is/was a conscious being)
Then do it.
Stop dodging. Show reproducible, testable evidence that distinguishes your God from imagination. Until then, you’re just asserting.
Nobody "designed" it. Evolution by natural selection explains complexity from simplicity, no designer required. If you think complexity requires design, explain who designed God, who is infinitely more complex.
Wrong. Biology is clear: human life is a continuum, not a single magic switch. What’s disputed is when rights should be granted, which is a moral and legal question, not a scientific one. You’re just mixing categories.
They were going to be evil otherwise.
They were essentially telling Elisha to kill himself. And he used God's name in vain.
Job is now in heaven. I don't think Job cares about the distant point in time when things were bad. That's like calling your parents cruel for banning you from videogames as a kid - although even that is more significant than what happened to Job.
That's because God is God. If a pig slaughters another pig and eats it, then pigs would find that evil. Yet it's okay when a human does it.
Oops! You didn't mention any nuking of towns 🤔
Finally, there's your goalposts. It has to be "reproducible" and "testable". Can you show me reproducible and testable evidence that Napoleon existed?
Pre-crime executions of babies? You’re justifying mass infanticide with Minority Report. That’s not morality, that’s thought-policing unborn futures. By that logic, God should’ve killed you before you typed this comment.
They yelled "baldy." You’re the one rewriting it as "kill yourself" to excuse bears mauling children. Imagine standing in front of a grieving parent and saying "don't worry, your kid had it coming for making fun of a prophet’s haircut."
So torturing someone is fine as long as you reward them later? If I broke your legs today but promised you a PS5 in ten years, would that make me moral? This is abuse with a consolation prize.
Wrong twice.
First, might doesn’t make right. If God orders genocide, it’s still genocide. slapping “God” on it doesn’t turn evil into good.
Second, your pig analogy fails with me because I'm vegan. It isn't okay when humans slaughter pigs. You just admitted your morality boils down to "the strong can do whatever they want to the weak."
That’s not morality, that’s predation.
Congratulations, you admitted it: divine command theory. If God ordered you to skin your child alive, you’d call it good. That’s not morality, that’s just worshiping raw power.
Jericho, Sodom, Gomorrah. Ring a bell? The Bible is full of God wiping out entire cities. Pretending otherwise won’t erase the body count.
Strawman.
We don’t need to "reproduce" Napoleon, we verify him through multiple independent sources: letters, accounts, artifacts, battlefields. If you have comparable evidence for God, written by neutral parties, corroborated by archaeology, contemporaneous, and consistent, then put it on the table.
Spoiler: you don’t.
All you’ve got is one internally contradictory book written by believers.
If He did, He would be well within His right to. If they weren't going to be totally depraved, He would have rescued them.
No. Refer to the text and context.
2 Kings 2:11-12, 23 [11] And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. [12] And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. ... [23] He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”
Basically, Elijah is missing. Elisha is claiming to be his successor. They mock the account of Elijah leaving earth instead of dying, and basically telling Elisha to go disappear with Elijah. Since they possibly didn't believe Elijah was carried up and instead died, they'd be asking Elisha to do the same.
So torturing someone is fine as long as you reward them later? If I broke your legs today but promised you a PS5 in ten years, would that make me moral? This is abuse with a consolation prize.
A PS5 isn't comparable to heaven. An eternity in paradise isn't a consolation prize. And God didn't torture Job. Satan did.
Fair. I hope you'd agree that killing unborn children is also wrong.
How would you define morality
The towns so bad that only one decent person lived in them? Who were spared alongside their family, despite their family also being terrible people?
I do. There are multiple independent sources pertaining to Jesus, accounts. Alleged artifacts, definitely sites mentioned are proved to have existed. They are contemporary and consistent.
No, we don't. The New Testament is 26 separate writings. And even then, there are a few writings outside of it such as Josephus, The Didache, and Polycarp.
You're expecting someone to literally see Jesus rise from the dead and write about it and not be a believer? That's like me saying "Everyone who writes pro vaccine material is pro vaccine. Find me some anti vaxxers arguing for vaccines, then I'll listen".
Translation: God killing babies is fine because God did it.
That’s not morality, that’s raw power worship.
If Hitler had been omnipotent, would you have called his actions "right" too? Because your standard isn't good vs evil; it’s just strong vs weak.
So the kids didn’t say "kill yourself", they said "go up like Elijah" Which is mockery, sure, but still not a capital offence.
You’re still defending child-murder-by-bear for playground trash talk. If your morality system equates insults with death, it's not morality, it's authoritarian fragility.
Wrong. Job 2:3 literally says God gave Job into Satan's hand "without reason". If I hand my kid to a known abuser "as a test", I’m responsible for everything that follows. Passing the blame to Satan doesn't make God look better, it makes Him look like an accomplice.
I'm pro-choice. I don't believe potential life has more value than the actual lives of the people carrying them.
But here's the kicker: even by your standard, your God fails. The Flood, the plagues, Old Testament wars; unborn children wiped out en masse. You claim to worship the "sanctity of life" but your own deity is history's biggest abortionist.
Morality = reducing unnecessary suffering and increasing well-being.
By that standard, bears mauling kids, floods drowning babies, and plagues killing firstborns are immoral.
Your definition is "whatever God says" which means if God told you to burn your toddler alive, you'd call it good. That's not morality, it's obedience.
Even if you take that at face value, God still torched everyone; children, infants, livestock. Collateral damage doesn't vanish just because you declare "everyone there was bad". That’s exactly the justification every human tyrant has ever used.
None of those are contemporary.
Josephus was born after Jesus allegedly died, and his passage about Jesus is widely considered tampered with by Christians.
The Didache and Polycarp are Christian writings, believers repeating their own story, not neutral evidence. That's like Mormons citing Joseph Smith's buddies as "independent sources"
Also, proving Jesus' existence doesn't prove his divinity. I dont care if a person named Jesus lived 2,000 years ago.
And no, your vaccine analogy fails. We have independent, testable, reproducible data for vaccines. If all we had were 26 internally inconsistent pamphlets from believers claiming vaccines worked, we'd laugh them out of the lab.
Your entire defense boils down to this: "God is good because He's God". That’s not an argument. That's an abdication of morality. You'd excuse anything; genocide, torture, infanticide; as long as it had divine branding.
Which means you don't have a moral compass at all.
You've outsourced it to a book that justifies things you'd call evil in any other context.