dude, you talk sense, don't stop. and karaldi obviously isn't a musician.

That doesn't sound right to me either. Which passages are you thinking of?

1 John 4:18 - There is no fear in love.

As far as other passages telling you to love God or fear God, well, those are basically everywhere.

Be careful there. It is not a rule book. That was one of the problems with Judaism, and I think is also a problem with Islam. And it is a problem in alot of Christian's minds. They were/are buried in legalities and rules.

The reason I said this is because I believe that atheists are generally good people. Yes, some of them may be bastards to religious people, but ultimately I don't think they mean anymore harm than a fundamental Christians who is equally biased against atheists. And they do it all without help of the Bible. I get frustrated when there are so many Christians who believe that you HAVE to have the Bible to lead a good life, yet atheists and even Buddhist monks do it on a daily basis. Really, the Buddhists have it better than any other religion, and they haven't "discovered" Jesus, like so many assert is necessary for moral values.

I suppose that may be the biggest reason I gradually became agnostic, because I was raised Catholic. After being told to deny God is blasphemy and a mortal sin, I began to wonder about Hindus, Buddhists, people living in Africa who have never heard the word of Christianity, ect. Would God send them to hell? Well, by the church's definition, yes. And when I pose this question, I always get the definitive "I don't know." Sorry, but that's not good enough for me. And I know you'll probably say something like, "God has the answer" or "It's His choice," but if He made me with this quizical nature, then I'm curious as to why He wouldn't want me to use it. For that reason, I reject the definition of God set by Christianity and substitute my own. In the end, however, I choose to remain indifferent about it, and just try to live as best as I can.

Instead, it's like this:

Take a sheet of music. Play it with perfect timing the way it is written, "by the rules." It sounds like ass.

Take the same sheet of music and play what the sheet music "means". You can have a truly beautiful performance.

I think Jesus was big on not being so focused on the rules, but rather the spirit of what the rules meant. I think that was one of the most important things he had to say.

Try again, because that didn't make any sense. Music sounds perfect when you play it perfectly. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to write it down.

Also, (and this is really nit-picking so I apologize), but you stated in the comments that it would be possible to survive without gravity. No, it wouldn't. The earth wouldn't have formed if it wasn't for gravity. And just think for a moment on how well you would do if suddenly you woke up and you were floating up to outer space.

Personally, I don't like all they "maybe" arguments that many fundamentals make. (Not that I regard you as a fundamental.) I get frustrated when someone points out an obvious flaw in the Bible and all the religious obsessives jump on it saying, "Well maybe it was this way" when there is no proof pointing towards it. "Maybe" would get us everywhere in world not based on facts. But I turn to science, because there is no room for "maybe" in it. If there is a "maybe" (I.E. - a hypothesis) well then, they work towards making it a definite. Saying God did is the end all to any question, and I feel that's dangerous to the pursuit of knowledge.

I'm perfectly fine with anyone who doesn't interpret the Bible as completely literal and the exact word of God. There are far too many contradictions in it (for example, we're told to love and fear God, yet in one passage, it is stated that there is no love in fear). I feel this way because I regard the Bible as a rule book to base our morality on. Although no longer completely necessary in a modern day world, at one point people needed to be reminded what was right.

Hey dude, please, feel free to make as many comments at any length you like. We like that here! Sifters come for the videos, but stay for the comments. And if you want to leave a private response, just go to my profile and comment there, and then check the box marked "private."

If God knowingly made a male and female with sexual organs for reproduction, don't you think He/It would have the foresight to make them pre-diverse? The asians, blacks, indians, etc you mention all come from their own part of the globe - a part where they bred, and where those traits that characterize the physical features associated with what we name them (asian, indian, etc) became more pronounced - not only from social reasons, but also from a great deal of chance - from who happens to survive and remain in the gene pool, and who died from lack of medical technology, etc. The also wasn't a mixing like there is today - once a people got somewhere they usually stayed. No one was like "well, we're moving 2000 miles so Harry can have a programming job." So you get these pockets of civilizations, and over time you get these asian, black, white, etc.

Re being whiteys, the Bible makes no claim as to Adam and Eve being white. Pictures of Jesus as a rugged handsome dude with long blondish hair and blue eyes make me chuckle. In fact the Bible says Jesus was unremarkable in appearance, which I take to mean he was just an average joe, not handsome at all. (But you can't sell invented pictures of someone who doesn't look good-looking. Lame.)

I see what you're saying with the incest deal. At some point it was okay? And later when there was enough people it was wrong? This is plausible if you look at "is there a need" versus "is there no need." So maybe it's wrong if there's no reason for it? Kind of a cheap answer on my part, but I've never really thought about it.

Eh, what I meant by geographical distribution is that there are distances which ensure that vocabulary does not travel. Not so much now that we have all this global communication stuff, etc. Anyway, I think you caught my drift before. If a bunch of people live on an island and no one from 'outside' ever goes there, the language changes. Especially if you have no written language!

All that said, maybe Adam and Eve didn't exist at all. Whether fictional or not, what's most important is what the story has to say about people. I think what it says, is that at some point, "people" chose to make their own opinions and their own judgements based on what selfishly suited them, knowingly going against "doing the right thing." It's that selfishness that breaks us away from "love". Ever heard it said, "God is love"?

You can also think about the point of "Adam and Eve" like this: God wants a relationship with people. In a relationship, you can't force someone to want to stay in it with you, right? You might do it physically and threaten their life if they try to leave, but if you did that to a girl, her heart would be running away from you at a million miles an hour even if her body wasn't, right? Soooo - to have a true, intimate relationship you have to give the other person the possibility of leaving. You have to say "okay, I accept you into my heart, and I know that by doing so I ALSO have to accept the fact that you can hurt me."

And they did it man. The "Adam and Eve" said, "well okay, we're outta here." And poof! Now there's all this bullshit in the world, because they broke up with God/Love.

Your grandmother and grandfather, who are very diverse, also had diverse children due to recessive genes. In other words, these traits were stored up in their DNA from countless ancestors. Of course, Adam and Eve has no ancestors, unless you count God. Now, even taking your grandmother and grandfather into consideration, that still doesn't explain exactly how we have Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, Indians, Native Americans, (the list goes on) all from just two presumed white people.

On the other hand, one could assert that God made Adam and Eve with all these recessive genes, and therefore diversity began to spread, but I see this as highly unlikely because it would be impossible to cram that much into one person. Also, taking into account Noah's ark, it would seem that many of these races would have been wiped out in the flood, if the story proved to be true. So again, all these races spawned from a couple of white people.

I also find huge flaws in the Bible's story of Adam and Eve because they only had three sons. I'm not quite sure how you expect to have grandchildren with only three sons (one which is later killed) and no other women except for the mother. What's also interesting is that the Bible condemns incest on several occasions, yet this would have to have taken to place for humanity to survive in the stories of Adam and Eve and Noah's ark. I don't understand why God would put them in that situation where they would HAVE to commit incest, if He disproved of it so much as to mention it several times in the Bible.

Also, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by language being affected by geographical distribution. American and British English are different because at one point, under Elizabethean rule, the English decided on trying to make their language more beautiful, and actively changed the way they spoke, while here in the American colonies, no such change took place, save for a few people on the East Coast. If that's what you meant, then yes, you would be correct.

In reply to your comment:
“My grandmother had red hair, my grandfather black. One had hazel eyes, the other light brown. Their son, my uncle, is blond with blue eyes. The fact that two people contribute to one offspring apparently doesn't result in a narrowing of traits in their children. Why would Adam and Eve be any different? Evolution indicates that these biological machines we are in become less complex as well as more complex. Re language, one only has to compare British and American English to see how language changes over time as a result of geographic distribution.”