By "closest at hand", I didn't mean that you grabbed it right away. While you did spend years coming to Jesus, it's no coincidence that you did, IMO. You say that among religions, you were particularly prejudiced against Christianity for it's implausibility. This doesn't surprise since it was the one you were most familiar with, and so the one you had seen the most problems with, until you investigated the other ones, and found them even worse. As you have noted several times yourself, growing up in the West, you were also strongly prejudiced towards Christianity, since a large part of our cultural ethos and moral code stems directly from it, even for us atheists. So, if you were going to discover that one religion was the true one, it would almost certainly be a strain of Christianity as it's the one that fits your own culture's moral code the best. If you'd chosen Voodoo instead, then your careful search of religions would be something worth pointing to as evidence.

I was prejudiced against Christianity because I didn't believe Jesus was a real person. I had never actually seriously investigated it, and I was also remarkably ignorant of what Christianity was all about, to the point that it might strain credulity. So no, it wasn't due to familiarity, because there wasn't any. I was just naturally inclined to reject it because of that doubt about Jesus.

At the point at which I accepted it, I had already rejected religion altogether. I was no more inclined to accept Christianity than I was Voodoo or Scientology. I had my own view of God and I viewed any imposition on that view as being artificial and manmade. The *only* reason I accepted Christianity as being true, as being who God is, is because of special revelation. That is, that God had let me know certain things about His nature and plan before I investigated it, which the bible later uniquely confirmed. My experience as a Christian has also been confirming it to this day.

These definitions, especially the ones about Satan are really self-serving. You declare that you have the truth, and part of that truth is that anyone who disagrees with you is possessed by the devil, which of course your dissenters will deny. But you can counter that easily because your religion has also defined satanic possession as something you don't notice. Tight as a drum, and these definitions from nowhere but the religion's own book.

My view is not only based on the bible but also upon my experience. I first became aware of demon possession before I became a Christian. I had met several people who were possessed by spirits in the New Age/Occult movement. At the time, I didn't know it was harmful, so I would interact with them and they would tell me (lies) about the spiritual realm. I thought it was very fascinating but I found out later they were all liars and very evil. It was only when I became a Christian that I realized they were demons.

I don't think everyone who doesn't know Jesus is possessed. If not possessed, though, heavily influenced. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin, and does the will of the devil, whether they know it or not. The illusion is complex and intricate, traversing the centers of intellect, emotion, memory, and perception, and interweaving them; it is a complete world that you would never wake up from if it wasn't for Gods intervention. The devil is a better programmer than the machines in the Matrix.

Actually, it was a very different feeling from that. I didn't feel I was the target of any conspiracy. I had stumbled into one --my group of friends-- but I was ignorant of the conspiracy before I had my experience. After I had it, I realized that they were all part of something bigger than me that I could never understand, and that I was actually in their way, that my presence in their group was really cramping their style a lot, slowing things down, forcing them to get things done surreptitiously. I realized they weren't going to directly remove me for now, but I didn't know how long their patience would last. So I removed myself, and hoped they'd leave me alone. In hindsight, they were horrible friends to begin with, so it was no loss for me. Losing those friends was a very good move for me.

Whatever they were involved in, it sounds like it wasn't any good. I can get a sense for what you're saying, but without further detail it is hard to relate to it.

Again, you're claiming you are right, and everything untrue comes from Satan, and if I have any logical reason to doubt your story, you can give yourself permission to ignore my logic by saying it is from Satan and that's why it has the power to show the Truth is wrong. So, any Christian who believes a logical argument that conflicts with the dogma is, by definition, being fooled by Satan, and has a duty to doubt their own mind. Even better than the last one for mind control. It does away utterly with reliance on any faculty of the mind, except when their use results in dogmatic thoughts. Genius. Serious props to whoever came up with that. That's smart.

God is the one who said "Let us reason together". I accept that you have sincere reasons for believing what you do and rejecting my claims. If you gave me a logical argument which was superior to my understanding, I wouldn't throw it away as a Satanic lie. I would investigate it and attempt to reconcile it with my beliefs. If it showed my beliefs to be false, and there was no plausible refutation (or revelation), I would change my mind. The way that someone becomes deceived is not by logical arguments, it's by sin. They deceive themselves. You don't have to worry much about deception if you are staying in the will of God.

Like, if you say you believe God exists, I say fine. If you say you know God exists, I say prove it's not your imagination. If you say evolution is wrong, ordinarily I wouldn't care what you believe, except that if you're on school board and decide to replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design in the science curriculum, then I have to object because that causes harm to children who are going to think that they are real science, and on equal footing with/compatible with/superior to evolution.

Have you ever seriously investigated the theory of evolution? Specifically, macro evolution. It isn't science. Observational science is based on data that you can test or observe. Macro evolution has never been observed, nor is there any evidence for it. Micro evolution on the other hand is scientific fact. There are definitely variations within kinds. There is no evidence, however, of one species changing into another species. If you haven't ever seriously investigated this, you are going to be shocked at how weak the evidence actually is.

evolution is unproved and unprovable. we believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.

sir arthur keith
forward to origin of the species 100th anniversay 1959

You may be right. I may be right. I think it's more likely that I'm right, but that's neither here nor there. How do you know you're not seeing things that aren't there? My experience proves the human mind is capable of doing so and sustaining it. The bible could have been written by several such people. Maybe in that time and place, people who ranted about strange unconnected things were considered to be prophets, and once plugged into the God story, they went to town. I'm not saying it's true, just a possible theory.

There isn't anything I can say which will conclusively prove it to you. The reason being, because my testimony is reliant upon my judgement to validate it, and you don't trust my judgement. You are automatically predisposed to doubt everything I have to say, especially regarding supernatural claims. So asking me to prove it when you aren't going to believe anything I say about it is kind of silly. All I can say is that I have been around delusional people, and the mentally ill, very closely involved in fact, and I know what that looks like. I am as sharp as I ever have been, clear headed, open minded, and internally consistant. You may disagree with my views, but do you sense I am mentally unstable, paranoid, or unable to reason?

Also, the prophets in the bible weren't ranting about strange, unconnected things. The bible has an internal consistancy which is unparalled, even miraculous, considering that it was written by 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years in three different languages.

If I was "in it" and deceiving myself then, I was in something and deceiving myself before. My beliefs about all supernatural things remain unchanged by my experience, that's to say, I still don't believe they exist.

I didn't either, so I understand your skepticism. Until you see for yourself that material reality is just a veil, you will never believe it. But when you do see it, it will change *everything*.

First, not claiming to have created anything doesn't mean he didn't do it, or that he did [edit] claim it and the records were lost. Two, hold the phone -- this rules out Christianity. Genesis states the world was created in six days a few thousand years ago, or something. You can argue that this is metaphorical (why?), but surely you can't say that world being flat, or the sun rotating around the Earth is a metaphor. These are things God would know and have no reason to misrepresent. Since it's God's word, everyone would just believe it. And why not? It makes just as much sense that the Earth is round and revolves around its axis.

There is no reason to include Gods who made no claim to create the Universe, which is most of them. If their claims are lost in antiquity, we can assume that such gods are powerless to keep such documents available. What we should expect to find, if God has revealed Himself, is an active presence in the world with many believers. This narrows it down to a few choices.

I don't argue that this is metaphorical, I agrue that it is literal. I believe in a young age for the Earth, and a literal six day creation.

[On re-reading the preceding argument and the context you made the claim, it is a stupid see-saw argument, so I'm taking it back.] Consider also there are tens of thousands of different strains of Christianity with conflicting ideas of the correct way to interpret the Bible and conduct ourselves. Can gays marry? Can women serve mass? Can priests marry? Can non-virgins marry? And so on. Only one of these sects can be right, and again, probably none of them are.

The disagreements are largely superficial. Nearly all the denominations agree on the fundementals, which is that salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. There are true Christians in every denomination. The true church is the body of Christ, of which every believer is a member. In that sense, there is one church. We can also look at the early church for the model of what Christianity is supposed to look like. The number of denominations doesn't speak to its truth.

2. The method itself doesn't take into account why the religion has spread. The answer isn't in how true it is, but in the genius of the edicts it contains. For example, it says that Christians are obliged to go convert other people, and doing so will save their eternal souls from damnation. Anyone who is a Christian is therefore compelled to contribute to this uniquely Christian process. I can't count the number of times I've been invited to attend church or talk about God with a missionary. That's why Christianity is all over the world, whereas no other religion has that spread. Also, there are all sorts of compelling reasons for people to adopt Christianity. One is that Christians bring free hospitals and schools. This gives non-truth-based incentives to join. The sum of this argument is that Christianity has the best marketing, so would be expected to have the largest numbers. The better question is why Islam still has half the % of converts that Christianity does, even though it has no marketing system at all, and really a very poor public image internationally.

Yet, this doesn't take into account how the church began, which was when there was absolutely no benefit to being a Christian. In fact, it could often be a death sentence. The early church was heavily persecuted, especially at the outset, and it stayed that way for hundreds of years. It was difficult to spread Christianity when you were constantly living in fear for your life. So, the church had quite an improbable beginning, and almost certainly should have been stamped out. Why do you suppose so many people were willing to go to their deaths for it? It couldn't be because they heard a good sermon. How about the disciples, who were direct witnesses to the truth of the resurrection? Would they die for something they knew to be a lie, when they could have recanted at any time?

3. This kinda follows from #1, but I want to make it explicit, as this, IMHO, is one of the strongest arguments I've ever come up with. I've never presented it nor seen it presented to a believer, so I'm keen for your reaction. It goes something like this: If God is perfect, then everything he does must be perfect. If the bible is his word, then it should be instantly apparent to anybody with language faculties that it's all absolutely true, what it means, and how to extrapolate further truths from it. But that's not what happens. Christians argue and fight over the correct interpretation of the bible, and others argue with Christians over whether it's God's word at all based on the many, many things that appear inconsistent to non-Christians. In this regard, it's obvious that it's not perfect, and therefore not the word of God. If it's not the word of God, then the whole religion based on it is bunk.

The issue there is the free will choices of the people involved. God created a perfect world, but man chose evil and ruined it. Gods word is perfect, but not everyone is willing to accept it, and those that do will often pick and choose the parts they like due to their own unrighteousness. We all have the same teacher, the Holy Spirit, but not everyone listens to Him, and that is the reason for the disagreements.

I didn't say people needed it. I said having a religion in a scary universe with other people with needs and desires that conflict with your own makes life a lot easier and more comfortable. Religion, in general, is probably the greatest social organizing force ever conceived of, and that's why religions are so attractive and conservatively followed in places with less beneficial social organization (i.e., places without democracy), and lower critical thinking skills (i.e. places with relatively poor education).

People come to Christianity for all sorts of reasons, but the number one reason is because of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as Christianity without Him. I became a Christianity for none of the reasons you have mentioned, in fact I seem to defy all of the stereotypes. I will also say that being a Christianity is lot harder than not. Following the precepts that Christ gave us is living contrary to the ways humans naturally behave, and to the desires of the flesh. As far as education goes, Christianity has a rich intellectual tradition, and people from all walks of life call themselves followers of Christ. You're also ignoring the places where Christianity makes life a lot more difficult for people:



In contrast, in times and places where people on a large scale are well off and have a tradition of critical thinking, the benefits of having a religion as the system of governance are less apparent, and the flaws in this system come out. It becomes more common for such nations to question the authority of the church, and so separate religion from governance. The West has done so, and is leading the world. Turkey is the only officially secular Muslim nation in the world and has clearly put itself in a field apart from the rest, all because it unburdened itself of religious governance when an imposed basic social organization structure was no longer required.

Then how might you explain the United States, where 70 percent of people here call themselves Christian, 90 percent believe in some kind of God, and almost 50 percent believe in a literal six day creation?

You're right, and you may not know how right you are. Modern scientific investigation, as away of life, comes almost entirely from the Christian tradition. It once was in the culture of Christianity to investigate and try to understand the universe in every detail. The thought was that understanding the universe better was to approach understanding of God's true nature -- a logical conclusion since it was accepted that God created the universe, and understanding the nature of something is to reveal the nature of its creator (and due to our natural curiosity, learning things makes us feel better). The sciences had several branches. Natural science was the branch dealing with the non-transcendent aspects of the universe. The transcendent ones were left to theologists and philosophers, who were also considered scientists, as they had to rigorously and logically prove things as well, but without objective evidence. This was fine, and everyone thought knowledge of the world was advancing as it should until natural science, by its own procedures, started discovering natural facts that seemed inconsistent with the Bible.

This isn't entirely true. For instance, Uniforitarian Geology was largely accepted, not on the basis of facts, but on deliberate lies that Charles Lyell told in his book, such as the erosion rate of Niagra Falls. Evolution was largely accepted not because of facts but because the public was swayed by the "missing links" piltdown man and nebraska man, both of which later turned out to be frauds.

That's when people who wanted truth had to decide what their truth consisted of: either God and canon, or observable objective facts. Natural science was cleaved off from the church and took the name "science" with it. Since then, religion and science have both done their part giving people the comfort of knowledge. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is immutable and all-encompassing prefer religion. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is verifiable and useful prefer science.

The dichotomy you offer here is amusing; Christianity is both verifiable and useful. I'll quote the bible:

Mark 8:36

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

>> ^messenger:

>> ^hpqp:

So let me paraphrase:
Derp: "Hey herp, stop protecting your kid, I want to torture it, kill its friends and make it hate you for abandoning it."
Herp: "Sure, torture away!"
Million dollar question: is Herp a moral person/being?
Bonus question: if Herp is all-powerful, what is he protecting his kid from in the first place?


I agree 100% with what you wrote here. The Book of Job presents a major contradiction to the idea of a benevolent, omniscient God. Which is why I think Dan Barker majorly dropped the ball here on what should have been a slam dunk.

>> ^hpqp:

But the whole point here is that the religious mindset causes an otherwise moral person (they all agreed the first scenario was wrong) to condone an immoral action if it was for religious reasons. Case in point: suicide and murder in Islam, both major "sins", are seen as okay if part of Jihad.


See, if this was Dan Barker's point, I think he screwed it up royally. He's comparing apples and oranges. I can do the same thing he did and get the same results with a completely non-religious issue:

Let's say someone breaks in a family's home in the middle of the night and terrorizes them--holds them at gunpoint, ties them up, and tortures them (similar to the original example). After having his way with them for some time, the criminal starts to kill each family member in front of the others, starting with the kids. After killing the wife, the criminal is about to kill the husband when the husband is able to break free of his bindings. A struggle ensues and the husband overcomes the criminal and ties the criminal up.

Now, remember, the criminal is secure. The husband makes sure the binds are tight and the criminal can't go anywhere. Instead of calling the police, though, the husband picks up the criminal's gun and shoots the criminal right in the head, instantly killing him. Is the husband a murderer?

I think you would find a majority of people who say yes.

The criminal was subdued and no longer a threat. In the American legal system, the husband would most likely be found guilty of second degree murder or manslaughter. It was clearly a revenge killing and the only thing in question really is the mental state of the husband at the time it takes place: was he upset enough that it was manslaughter or did he do it in cold blood?

Now, let's change the scenario slightly. The husband never breaks free. The criminal gleefully and cruelly kills him. After fleeing from the scene of the crime, the criminal later is captured by police and put on trial for his crimes. He's found guilty on all counts due to overwhelming evidence and is sentenced to death. After a lengthy appeals process that takes over a decade, the death sentence is carried out by the state.

Question: Is the state guilty of murder?

You will find that far fewer people are willing to say that the state is guilty of murder. But why don't they? Isn't it the same situation? The criminal is just as guilty of the crimes in either case--the trial just made the guilt official. The criminal has been apprehended and is secure in prison. Surrounded by thick walls, steel bars, and armed guards, he no longer represents a threat to the public. At his execution he is tied down and given a lethal injection (which is dissimilar from being tied up and shot in the head really only in the amount mess that needs to be cleaned up afterwards).

So what's different? What's "clouding the moral judgment" of the people who declare the husband guilty of murder but won't declare the state guilty of murder? Aren't they contradicting themselves?

No, not really. The answer is simply that people attribute different rights to people than they do to government. Almost any basic definition of government requires that government be authorized to use force to obtain compliance from the governed (see Weber's theory)--up too and including lethal force. People who don't believe the state to be guilty of murder believe the state has the right to deprive those who commit serious enough crimes of their life (for a variety of stated reasons such as discouraging other criminals, providing justice for the victims, etc.). An individual, on the other hand, does not have such a right. In other words, it's immoral for the individual to redress the wrong themselves, but it isn't immoral for the state to do so, according to death penalty proponents, on the basis of individual and governmental rights.

(For the record, I am strongly opposed to the death penalty. If you're interested in my reasons, please ask me on my profile rather than derail this thread).

And that is why Dan got the audience response he did. People agree that a human butchering another human is immoral, but ascribe a different set of rights to the Biblical God. In particular, in the more conservative Christian traditions, humans are seen as "belonging" to the Biblical God and to be done with as He pleases.

So I wasn't surprised at all at the response that Dan Barker got. He compared apples and oranges and then seemed surprise when people weren't willing to claim an apple was an orange. Given how ripe the Book of Job is for criticizing many of the basic tenets of Christian belief, I kind of face-palmed when I heard his argument. He had a great chance here to make some keen points (the ones @hpqp raised above) and he completely missed it, I think. What he certainly didn't show was that the audience condoned immoral actions by humans in the name of religion. He simply showed that Christians ascribe different rights to their god than they do to humans. He seems outraged by that, but--as I just showed above--many of us do the same sort of thing with non-religious institutions like government so I'm not sure why he seems so shocked.

So in summary--I didn't upvote because I found the argument to be weak-sauce.

@shinyblurry

Finally getting around to this older comment of yours.

M: The first reason is that it's very common among holders of all sorts of mystical beliefs to have gained the belief following such an experience, and to have attributed the belief to whichever mystical force is closest at hand, in your case, Jesus.

SB: Even then I had no religion or belief system. From there, I explored many of the worlds belief systems and philosophies, religions and traditions, for many years, before being led to Christianity. To note, at the time, out of all the religions, I considered Christianity to be one of the least plausible. Again, because it had been uniquely confirmed to me, there was no way to deny it. The evidence was as plain as my reflection in the mirror.

By "closest at hand", I didn't mean that you grabbed it right away. While you did spend years coming to Jesus, it's no coincidence that you did, IMO. You say that among religions, you were particularly prejudiced against Christianity for it's implausibility. This doesn't surprise since it was the one you were most familiar with, and so the one you had seen the most problems with, until you investigated the other ones, and found them even worse. As you have noted several times yourself, growing up in the West, you were also strongly prejudiced towards Christianity, since a large part of our cultural ethos and moral code stems directly from it, even for us atheists. So, if you were going to discover that one religion was the true one, it would almost certainly be a strain of Christianity as it's the one that fits your own culture's moral code the best. If you'd chosen Voodoo instead, then your careful search of religions would be something worth pointing to as evidence.

[God] is the only source of truth, and anyone in contact with Him has access to that truth. The second and lesser power is that of Satan. He is the source of all lies, and anyone in contact with him is deluded and in bondage. Satan is the ruler of the world system, and in general, the people who are enslaved to him are not aware of it. He can only really enslave someone who is ignorant of the truth.

These definitions, especially the ones about Satan are really self-serving. You declare that you have the truth, and part of that truth is that anyone who disagrees with you is possessed by the devil, which of course your dissenters will deny. But you can counter that easily because your religion has also defined satanic possession as something you don't notice. Tight as a drum, and these definitions from nowhere but the religion's own book.

I think it's a natural thought to have, that your life might be something like the Truman show, and everyone else is in on the conspiracy. A belief like that puts you in the very center of the Universe, and from there you could weave together any story you could imagine.

Actually, it was a very different feeling from that. I didn't feel I was the target of any conspiracy. I had stumbled into one --my group of friends-- but I was ignorant of the conspiracy before I had my experience. After I had it, I realized that they were all part of something bigger than me that I could never understand, and that I was actually in their way, that my presence in their group was really cramping their style a lot, slowing things down, forcing them to get things done surreptitiously. I realized they weren't going to directly remove me for now, but I didn't know how long their patience would last. So I removed myself, and hoped they'd leave me alone. In hindsight, they were horrible friends to begin with, so it was no loss for me. Losing those friends was a very good move for me.

The thing is, what I know now is, that everyone who falls into these traps has a little help. That you don't just fall into the abyss, you get pushed in. Satan fuels these types of experiences supernaturally. He can cause people to give you responses or engage you in dialogues which confirm the lies that he has planted and therefore reap a harvert of delusion. He will even give you these kinds of experience in order to debunk them later with the ultimate goal of getting you to doubt the real thing:

Again, you're claiming you are right, and everything untrue comes from Satan, and if I have any logical reason to doubt your story, you can give yourself permission to ignore my logic by saying it is from Satan and that's why it has the power to show the Truth is wrong. So, any Christian who believes a logical argument that conflicts with the dogma is, by definition, being fooled by Satan, and has a duty to doubt their own mind. Even better than the last one for mind control. It does away utterly with reliance on any faculty of the mind, except when their use results in dogmatic thoughts. Genius. Serious props to whoever came up with that. That's smart.

I admit some things I believe may seem counter-intuitive to you, but as you have admitted, our intuitions about what is correct are not always reliable. Quantum physics is a good example of this truth.

I have no problem with counter-intuitive things. I love them. That's why I'm do drawn to quantum physics. I really try hard to wrap my mind around how some of those things can be so, but I really can't. I trust it's so only because experimental evidence bears it out. The only claims of anybody's that I have problems with are A) highly improbable ones only where following such a belief will somehow result in an undesirable outcome; and B) internally self-contradicting or otherwise demonstrably impossible ones.

Like, if you say you believe God exists, I say fine. If you say you know God exists, I say prove it's not your imagination. If you say evolution is wrong, ordinarily I wouldn't care what you believe, except that if you're on school board and decide to replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design in the science curriculum, then I have to object because that causes harm to children who are going to think that they are real science, and on equal footing with/compatible with/superior to evolution.

It seems to me that you're still very much interpreting reality through your experience. You make the leap that since you were able to fool yourself to such an extent, and that your experience had the character of the supernatural, that everyone who has a supernatural experience is undergoing a similar process. Yet, this is a classic example of confirmation bias. How do you know that you're still not seeing things according to an unconscious paradigm you haven't yet questioned?

You may be right. I may be right. I think it's more likely that I'm right, but that's neither here nor there. How do you know you're not seeing things that aren't there? My experience proves the human mind is capable of doing so and sustaining it. The bible could have been written by several such people. Maybe in that time and place, people who ranted about strange unconnected things were considered to be prophets, and once plugged into the God story, they went to town. I'm not saying it's true, just a possible theory.

As far as truth, it is by nature, exclusive. There is no true for me, or true for you. Someone is right and someone is wrong. This world was either created with intention, or it manifested itself out of sheer happenstance. There either is a God or there isn't.

Excellent to hear. I agree with everything here and might refer back to this several times when I get to your other comment about the nature of God.

You believe you were just deceiving yourself. What I am telling you is that you had supernatural help, and that you're still in it.

If I was "in it" and deceiving myself then, I was in something and deceiving myself before. My beliefs about all supernatural things remain unchanged by my experience, that's to say, I still don't believe they exist.

First, you can rule out all the gods who make no creation claims. Two, you can rule out the creation claims that contradict the basic evidence.

First, not claiming to have created anything doesn't mean he didn't do it, or that he did [edit] claim it and the records were lost. Two, hold the phone -- this rules out Christianity. Genesis states the world was created in six days a few thousand years ago, or something. You can argue that this is metaphorical (why?), but surely you can't say that world being flat, or the sun rotating around the Earth is a metaphor. These are things God would know and have no reason to misrepresent. Since it's God's word, everyone would just believe it. And why not? It makes just as much sense that the Earth is round and revolves around its axis.

I thought about weighting the probabilities for each religion, but discarded it as unwieldy and unnecessary. There are so many mutually exclusive strains even within a single religion that we are still left with tons of them to choose from.

Your evidence about what the most influential/largest religion is is valid (in the "indication" sense of "evidence") for Christianity's being true, and for it being the only reasonable candidate for being true, but is not conclusive. My counterarguments are several:

1. If having the largest relative numbers is evidence of the probable truth of something, then even larger numbers is stronger evidence that it's probably not true. Around 2 billion people are Christian, so around 5 billion are not. By this method, while it's most probable Christianity is right, it's more probable that none of the religions is right. [On re-reading the preceding argument and the context you made the claim, it is a stupid see-saw argument, so I'm taking it back.] Consider also there are tens of thousands of different strains of Christianity with conflicting ideas of the correct way to interpret the Bible and conduct ourselves. Can gays marry? Can women serve mass? Can priests marry? Can non-virgins marry? And so on. Only one of these sects can be right, and again, probably none of them are.

2. The method itself doesn't take into account why the religion has spread. The answer isn't in how true it is, but in the genius of the edicts it contains. For example, it says that Christians are obliged to go convert other people, and doing so will save their eternal souls from damnation. Anyone who is a Christian is therefore compelled to contribute to this uniquely Christian process. I can't count the number of times I've been invited to attend church or talk about God with a missionary. That's why Christianity is all over the world, whereas no other religion has that spread. Also, there are all sorts of compelling reasons for people to adopt Christianity. One is that Christians bring free hospitals and schools. This gives non-truth-based incentives to join. The sum of this argument is that Christianity has the best marketing, so would be expected to have the largest numbers. The better question is why Islam still has half the % of converts that Christianity does, even though it has no marketing system at all, and really a very poor public image internationally.

3. This kinda follows from #1, but I want to make it explicit, as this, IMHO, is one of the strongest arguments I've ever come up with. I've never presented it nor seen it presented to a believer, so I'm keen for your reaction. It goes something like this: If God is perfect, then everything he does must be perfect. If the bible is his word, then it should be instantly apparent to anybody with language faculties that it's all absolutely true, what it means, and how to extrapolate further truths from it. But that's not what happens. Christians argue and fight over the correct interpretation of the bible, and others argue with Christians over whether it's God's word at all based on the many, many things that appear inconsistent to non-Christians. In this regard, it's obvious that it's not perfect, and therefore not the word of God. If it's not the word of God, then the whole religion based on it is bunk.

I agree to some extent about psychological motivations but reject the premise as a whole that people need religion to live in a scary Universe. Most atheists aren't aware of the vast intellectual and philosophical traditions of Christianity, or how self-critical it can be. Even Paul said that if Jesus is not resurrected that we are all fools. We're not just a bunch of ignoramouses who drank the kool-aid and are waiting for the UFO to arrive.

I didn't say people needed it. I said having a religion in a scary universe with other people with needs and desires that conflict with your own makes life a lot easier and more comfortable. Religion, in general, is probably the greatest social organizing force ever conceived of, and that's why religions are so attractive and conservatively followed in places with less beneficial social organization (i.e., places without democracy), and lower critical thinking skills (i.e. places with relatively poor education).

In contrast, in times and places where people on a large scale are well off and have a tradition of critical thinking, the benefits of having a religion as the system of governance are less apparent, and the flaws in this system come out. It becomes more common for such nations to question the authority of the church, and so separate religion from governance. The West has done so, and is leading the world. Turkey is the only officially secular Muslim nation in the world and has clearly put itself in a field apart from the rest, all because it unburdened itself of religious governance when an imposed basic social organization structure was no longer required.

It's funny but science functions in the same way for atheists as you say a god does for theists.

You're right, and you may not know how right you are. Modern scientific investigation, as away of life, comes almost entirely from the Christian tradition. It once was in the culture of Christianity to investigate and try to understand the universe in every detail. The thought was that understanding the universe better was to approach understanding of God's true nature -- a logical conclusion since it was accepted that God created the universe, and understanding the nature of something is to reveal the nature of its creator (and due to our natural curiosity, learning things makes us feel better). The sciences had several branches. Natural science was the branch dealing with the non-transcendent aspects of the universe. The transcendent ones were left to theologists and philosophers, who were also considered scientists, as they had to rigorously and logically prove things as well, but without objective evidence. This was fine, and everyone thought knowledge of the world was advancing as it should until natural science, by its own procedures, started discovering natural facts that seemed inconsistent with the Bible.

That's when people who wanted truth had to decide what their truth consisted of: either God and canon, or observable objective facts. Natural science was cleaved off from the church and took the name "science" with it. Since then, religion and science have both done their part giving people the comfort of knowledge. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is immutable and all-encompassing prefer religion. People who find the most comfort in knowledge that is verifiable and useful prefer science.

Yep, it's all looking good. Saturday's now looking 25 and mostly sunny - loving it.

Melbourne is our oyster. I have had a bit of a check, and most rooftop bars open around midday on Saturday.

http://www.au.timeout.com/melbourne/bars/venues/725/campari-house
http://www.au.timeout.com/melbourne/bars/venues/412/rooftop-bar
http://rooftopcinema.com.au/
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/71/1621007/restaurant/CBD/The-Aylesbury-Melbourne
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/the-aylesbury-20111029-1mpah.html

As I said, I'm looking like 8pm and will contact Dag to find your whereabouts. If you do head to the rooftops, Mme Brussels and the Carlton Hotel are pretty close by Meyers Place. Brussels is a bit more showy and expensive than the Carlton, which is more of a 'beer on tap' kind of place. The rooftop bar on Swanston St is further away, but has a spectacular view.

If you are keen to eat before I get there, no worries - I'll meet you for drinks afters.

Recipe for disaster...
>> ^ChaosEngine:

Good on her. Hell, bring the kids. Would be a great experience for them. In fact, bring a whole bunch of kids. Set up a community school. See how keen the cops are to get violent then....

that's some keen detective work there!>> ^residue:

Do my eyes deceive me? Could that possibly be a snoopy ice-cone machine I see?

Thanks for your keen eye/great memory!

In reply to this comment by IronDwarf:
Sorry, dupe: http://videosift.com/video/Slow-Loris-loves-a-nice-tummy-rub-soooo-cute

Good speech. Shame his wife isn't so keen on protecting freedoms

Good on her. Hell, bring the kids. Would be a great experience for them. In fact, bring a whole bunch of kids. Set up a community school. See how keen the cops are to get violent then....

>> ^snoozedoctor:

In the multitude of recent posts/blogs/discussions about eating the rich, one name is consistently absent of criticism, even prior to his death, Steve Jobs. Net worth over 6 billion dollars, doing no philanthropic work to speak of (as compared to the often vilified Bill Gates), and not one of the many billionaires pledging half of their estate to charities (check out "the giving pledge". Why not Jobs? "Cause dude, like, you know man, he made cool stuff."
Anyone that cannot see the benefit to society, the multitude of companies and people employed that simply augment and support apple products, from iphone covers, to sound docks, on, and on and on, well......if you can't see that, no wonder you don't understand and appreciate capitalism at it's best. True, I don't think money motivated Steve Jobs, I'm quite sure it didn't, but he wasn't keen on giving it away.
If you don't like your lot in life, do what I did, borrow money, do 8 years of post-grad training working 80 hour weeks, get a job, pay back your loans and have a lifestyle above the mean, get yourself on the Board of a charity and give 10% of your income to charities that you trust will distribute money to people that really need it. I didn't do all that work to give money to someone that wants to sit on their ass. I guess I'm what's wrong with this country, an ordinary dude that wants to get ahead.


Steve jobs: The richest income tax evader the world has ever seen. A 1$/year salary? So endearing.

In the multitude of recent posts/blogs/discussions about eating the rich, one name is consistently absent of criticism, even prior to his death, Steve Jobs. Net worth over 6 billion dollars, doing no philanthropic work to speak of (as compared to the often vilified Bill Gates), and not one of the many billionaires pledging half of their estate to charities (check out "the giving pledge". Why not Jobs? "Cause dude, like, you know man, he made cool stuff."
Anyone that cannot see the benefit to society, the multitude of companies and people employed that simply augment and support apple products, from iphone covers, to sound docks, on, and on and on, well......if you can't see that, no wonder you don't understand and appreciate capitalism at it's best. True, I don't think money motivated Steve Jobs, I'm quite sure it didn't, but he wasn't keen on giving it away.
If you don't like your lot in life, do what I did, borrow money, do 8 years of post-grad training working 80 hour weeks, get a job, pay back your loans and have a lifestyle above the mean, get yourself on the Board of a charity and give 10% of your income to charities that you trust will distribute money to people that really need it. I didn't do all that work to give money to someone that wants to sit on their ass. I guess I'm what's wrong with this country, an ordinary dude that wants to get ahead.

Sounds awesome, BR. I know nothing about marine fish keeping (as opposed to freshwater), except that it always looks incredible when done well. Or when you say salt, are you talking about the salt you put in to neutralise the freshwater?

I used to hear stories of people who had modified old TVs into aquariums, so that you think you're looking at the screen, but it's actually a functioning tank. I guess that doesn't work with flatscreens...

As for plants, I was always partial to a tiger lotus: http://www.mosswall.com/ebay/image/PL/PL-NY01-01.jpg

Again, freshwater.

Will be keen to see what you put together.

My secret shame.

I am a recovering aquarist (that's actually a word, says Google). I had tropical fish as a child, and started to get back into it after moving to my current city.

One thing I discovered was that changing 1/3 of the water weekly is a good way to keep fish healthy, but clean your filter only once every couple of months (and only squeeze out the sponge inside the filter - never use any detergent). It seems that the filter ends up full of 'good bacteria' which balances the tank ecosystem. I had been vigorously scrubbing the filter every week and wondering why my fish kept getting diseases. The guy at the shop gave me the above advice, and suggested cleaning the filter in tank water (not fresh water). That is, when you take 1/3 of the tank water out, clean the filter in that water. Worked a treat.

I really loved having the tank, but eventually grew tired of it. It just became a fortnightly chore (every week ended up too much).

Would be keen to see pics once you get it set up.

>> ^hpqp:

Uh, I hate to break up the pedo-bashing, but as far as they know the guy was just taking photos of kids. Creepy? Maybe. Pedo? Not necessarily. By all means he should be reported, and have his computers and home checked, but 'innocent until proven guilty' should still abide. People have had their lives completely and utterly ruined for being falsely accused of pedophilia.
/devil's advocate


I was thinking something similar, but what took it over the edge was the description of the pictures not being just a random collection, but pictures of the same kids taken over hours, as if he was stalking them. I think a lot also depends on what the composition was. He seemed pretty damned keen to delete the pictures when confronted, so I suspect that there were probably some up-skirt shots, or at least attempts at such from the way the father was describing the whole trying to get pic of her as she got off the wagon "with legs akimbo."

Definitely need more info to make a full judgement but it really stinks and the way the guy reacted kind of implies he knew he was up to no good... even if he didn't technically do anything illegal.

Keen is one of my favorite words, you could say I am keen on using it in course of this day.