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Michael Vito Tosto
Goodreads Author
Born
in St. Louis, The United States
Website
Genre
Member Since
August 2013
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/joshuanism
More books by Michael Vito Tosto…
“There is nothing loving about encouraging fear. Nothing. Fear leads to darkness, depression, anger, irrationality, anxiety, consternation, unrest, and ultimately, destruction. Fear, as Yoda reminds us all, is the path to the Dark Side. Fear is a weapon, not a productive tool. Fear is a means of control. Fear should never be the basis for why anyone does anything regarding the health of the mind, body, and spirit.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“The moment a mind closes is the moment it can no longer evolve. Intellectual inertia soon follows. I suppose that in many ways this is one of my main objections to theism; it assumes that all questions are already firmly answered. There is no room for curiosity. A closed question does not lead to other questions. Thus, there is no progression, no evolution, no molting. This is no good for me. I want to evolve. I want to progress. I want to molt. And I want to keep learning about the real mysteries of this Universe.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“We all encounter random phenomena, arbitrary occurrences, chance meetings, and eerie coincidences. When we attach our own meaning to these events, we are feeding meaning into the random; we are choosing something arbitrary and assigning our own deeper purpose to it. The problem, though, is that we do this selectively.”
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“Christianity voids any significance that would otherwise be attributed to a human life. It reduces all the good things you’ve done and all the bad things you’ve done to, well, nothing. All the good you’ve done won’t matter if you don’t have Jesus. All the bad you’ve done won’t matter if you do have Jesus. In either case, what you do doesn’t matter.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“I just cannot help but feel as though [Christianity] cheapens life. After all, what we must conclude at the end of the day is this disheartening and somewhat debilitating possibility: everything you think, feel, hope for, long for, experience, taste, smell, touch, learn, comprehend, discover, create, work toward, work on, and do, means absolutely nothing to the Christian God if you do not have faith in Jesus.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“Since one could virtually open the Bible to any page and likely find something that speaks to his particular situation, is it fair to attribute this to the voice of God? After all, the Bible is not the only relevant book in existence. There are other religions with other scriptural texts which could do the same job. In fact, the text need not even be “scriptural.” I could select Sartre’s “Existentialism and Humanism” off the shelf, randomly flip to any page, and likely find something applicable to my life. Does this mean God is speaking through the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, a man who was by no means considered a friend to Christian thought? If the answer is yes, then who really needs to read the Bible? If this God is capable of turning anything into his “word” at any time, then you could theoretically receive a message from him in your Alpha-Bits.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“You cannot have it both ways. You cannot apply a definitive conclusion to the favorable outcomes of random chance without also applying a definitive conclusion to the unfavorable outcomes of random chance. If you are not fair in both instances, it means you have just committed a variation of what is known as special pleading.”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
“If the Bible is accurate in its assertions (a generous statement on our part), then we must also observe that anyone who ultimately comes to God does so because God made it happen. But this seems to imply that God makes it happen for some but doesn’t make it happen for others. Why? Is this fair? Is this good? Is this justice? Is this love?”
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
― Portrait of an Infidel: The Acerbic Account of How a Passionate Christian Became an Ardent Atheist
