Well Sluice, here is the problem. The catholic church teaches you that to follow God, you must do it through their church. In other words, they have made themselves the mediator between God and man. They have also supplanted the truth in the word of God with their traditions. They actually put the Pope, the traditions of the church, and the scripture on an equal level. So, to be a Catholic you must follow all of their traditions, agree with everything the pope says, do all of the sacraments, go to confession, etc etc etc. The issue is that none of this has anything to do salvation. You cannot come to know God by doing any of these things. So while you may have been talking to God, that doesn't mean you knew Him. To know God you have to be born again. This is what Jesus says about those seeking Him through traditions:

Mark 7:7

They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'

It's like this. If you needed to get to Los Angeles, and you took a plane to New York, would you expect to arrive at Los Angeles? Of course not. Trying to know God through Catholicism is like trying to reach Los Angeles by flying to New York. There are some Catholics, who, having read the bible and understood it, may have come to know God, but this would be in spite of their religion, not because of it.

Now, you bring up the question of why do some ministers fall away? Well, anyone can go to seminary and get a degree and call themselves a pastor. That isn't what makes someone a Pastor. Pastors are not educated, they are called.

Yes, some people may come to know God and still fall away. Look at what Jesus said:

Rev 3:14 "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.'

Rev 3:15 "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!

Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

He promised the church in Laodicea that He would eject lukewarm believers from the faith. For those who know God and continually willfully sin, He says this:

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Basically, those who come to God but don't really want to serve Him and they refuse to change, He lets them fall back into unbelief. If they ever turn around and want to come back, He will take them back again.

Right now, if you truly wanted to know God, He would reveal Himself to you. Pride may be the only thing that is getting in the way. He is knocking on your door right now; that's why we're having this conversation. It's up to you to answer it.

What attracted you into conversation here is that the Sift is a de facto place for atheists to hang out. When you "speak your mind" about religion and atheism, there's two problems. The first is that since we are overwhelmingly non-believers, opinions against atheism and pro-religion are going to irritate a greater number of people, and so get the most attention. Our opinions against religion only offend you and maybe one or two other people ever, that I've seen. It's a numbers thing. Don't take it personally. The second is that, as I've mentioned already in this thread, you do come off supremely arrogant in your beliefs. Just saying, from our perspective. I'll turn it around to your perspective for a second. Consider these two sentences, a) "I consider the Bible to be fairy tales, and I don't understand why Christians people believe it's true." and b) "It's better to question the world rather than blindly accept a book of fairy tales." After which of these two sentences are you more likely to be able to continue reading for several more paragraphs, presumably all written in the same tone, with an open, clear, unangry mind? For most people —even atheists— the tone of the first sentence is preferable and more conducive to communication.

I'm not offended by your conversation, or your videos. In the past, I may have overreacted to insults, but they don't really bother me any longer. I am not sitting here enraged because some atheist suggested that God doesn't exist. I have heard just about every nasty thing anyone could possibly say about God, and then some. People have called me every sort of name that you could call someone. Even you can't resist putting in a dart here and there. That's just the way it is. If I let that bother me then I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone here.

If I've come off as arrogant, then that is unfortunate, because I don't feel superior to anyone here. I apologize to anyone who thinks that is the case. I am usually very direct in what I say, and I don't beat around the bush, and perhaps that has ruffled a few feathers. However, I always try to temper my speech with compassion and understanding. I don't think that is a fair characterization, and I think you are also ignoring the hyper sensitivity people have about their beliefs.

I've been using the sift since 06 or 07; the reason I finally signed up is because of the antitheistic bent the site had taken. Perhaps it was always there and I didn't really notice it. In any case, as a long time visitor here, I felt the site no longer represented me and I felt compelled to speak up for the other side of the argument. So I was not drawn to the sift because of atheism; I had already been using the sift for a long time.

I'll turn it back to the non-theist's perspective now. After listening to a cogent talk from Feynman explaining quite clearly why he would prefer to have no answer rather than possibly have a wrong answer, your first pitch over the plate was, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it", and then all rest of the stuff that followed that shows you didn't hear what he said at all. Feynman clearly doesn't prefer to "imagine that the answer is something else, because he doesn't like it." Then you used that as a launch pad for an assault on scientists in general through quotemining. I didn't read past the first paragraph. I moved straight down to see the reaction to your tone, and sure enough, it had started in earnest. I'd call that a failure in communication, unless you just wanted to vent, and maybe that day that's all the satisfaction you wanted. OK, but there you are. And you do this often enough, and people will see your avatar at the head of a comment somewhere else, and immediately their minds will shift into attack/defense mode, and your chances of communicating directly to their minds is almost zero – and they haven't even read a word yet.

Yet, someone who usually criticizes me agreed with me and said I had a good point. You say I didn't understand what Richard said, but apparently I understood it well enough to make a coherent point in opposition to what he said. What you're guilty of here is cherry picking. That sentence was part of an overall point and wasn't mean to be taken by itself.

In any case you say I failed, and perhaps I did in some ways, but not in the way you have asserted. You're right and you are wrong about what you've said here, but I get your overall point.

The fact is, since I've been here, this is the way people here have reacted to me. I don't get this reaction everywhere I go. Some of this is my fault, and some of it isn't. Either way I am not complaining. It is what it is. There is always room for improvement.

And to your comment about being invited. This place wasn't primarily designed for people to communicate opinions. It was designed for people to enjoy themselves while they procrastinate, feel a part of something, get some pseudo-community feelings going. There's no rule against giving any opinions here, nor against coming in large part to represent a certain opinion, but doing so runs against the main purpose of the place, organically defined by the intent of the people who come. This isn't an ideas discussion/debates forum with focus on arguing points to a conclusion. You can do that, but that's not the main purpose. What you tend to do here makes it more difficult for others to achieve their main purpose here, which is kicking up and not really thinking for an hour or two. And uh-oh, there's a comment from sb, killing the buzz. We could ignore it, but we just can't help reading what it says even though we already know it's almost certain to infuriate us with a relentless brand of reasoning that we do not understand.

Come on. People are not just here to relax, they are also here to promote their political, philosophical and (anti)religious ideologies. The sift loves red meat. People here love to express their opinions about what they love and what they hate, and they love to argue when anyone disagrees with them.

I get what you're saying. I could be more sensitive to how my comments will be perceived, and try to say things in a different way. I agree with you here. I'll keep it in mind.

In the end, however, the main purpose of this site is whatever the site operator purposes. What the site operator has said is that I am a valuable member of this community.

Fallacious arguments? Every time I point out a mistake, you invent a convenient new rule for understanding the Bible (or more likely you copy-paste what it says on some apologia clearinghouse website). I could literally find a quote that says, "oranges are black" and you'd justify it somehow. I just found a passage that gives two incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham. And in a book that's supposed to be completely true, you excuse it by telling me the writers are taking artistic licence? WTF????? This isn't a poetry slam! It's the bloody word of God! If you claim everything in it is true, so much so that you've given up sex, condemn gay people, etc., then everything else in it *must* be literally true or you have no foundation for giving up sex or condemning gay people. Those could be metaphorical warnings about the lure of great pleasures in general. Either one of those things about Joram and Joatham written in the Bible is false, or anyone can point to any passage and call it optional, or poetry, or a style of writing, or just a metaphor. You can't have it both ways.

Now this is simply your ignorance talking. When I gave you my answer about the lineage in Matthew, I wasn't just pulling something out of a hat. Apparently you haven't heard of Chiastic structure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure

It's not false, it is simply a writing style employed by Matthew to emphasize the lineage in a particular way. This is not some kind of desperate analysis to cover up a mistake, but is a well known style used in ancient literature. I'm not making excuses, or putting off something to metaphor; Matthew was definitely using Chiastic structure, and that is why that verse is symmetrical.

First, I'm saying the effects of personal prayer *can* be scientifically measured, so either your contention that God will not be tested is bunk, or self-prayer is really just meditation. You also didn't understand the set-up of the prayer-for-other test. In that scenario, there were real ill people in the hospitals, and they compared the outcomes for patients who had had others sincerely praying for them from a distance versus those who didn't. IOW, the sincere prayer happened. There has never been any measured health benefit for the ill people. They died off and recovered in equal numbers.

No, they can't be scientifically measured. You would never know during your test whether God was simply feeding you a certain kind of result. Think about it. God knows the entire time that you're trying to test for His existence outside of what He ordained (faith in Jesus Christ). His choice is either to give you results that will prove His existence outside of Christ or results that will make it ambiguous. What do you think He is going to do?

You keep saying that my position is one of cognitive dissonance. Look at yourself. You twist your mind into any shape you need for your dogma to hold true, never once truly considering the possibility that it's all in your head. You've said the words that you might be wrong, but you've never shown it's more than lip service. I've never seen you take a critical eye to your position on God and the Bible, despite the numerous opportunities I and others have given to you.

And this is exactly what Feynman's talking about when he says the scientific approach starts from the position that all hypotheses are wrong, then goes about trying to prove it through observation. Anything that's still standing afterwards is good scientific theory.

You're acting is if I have no evidence for my beliefs. If it was just a matter of believing the bible was true because I wanted to believe it, you might have a point. The reason I believe the bible is true because of personal revelation. I experience the presence of God in my daily life. It would be illogical for me to deny the existence of God based on the evidence I have received. I do not "twist my mind into any shape" to believe what I read in the bible. My worldview is internally consistent, and it is also rational. You may find it irrational because of your presuppositions, but that is because you reject the evidence I have receive apriori. To you there must always be some other explanation, and that is the way you interpret everything I say. You've already come to the conclusion that I am deluding myself, and everything I say you filter through that conclusion. Rather than letting the evidence interpret the conclusion, you are interpreting the evidence through the conclusion.

Religion, on the other hand, starts from the assuming the conclusion that God and the Bible are real, and any observational facts that don't line up must themselves be wrong facts, no matter how well documented they are. And when those facts can no longer be denied, then the Bible passages in question are suddenly no longer considered to have literal meaning, and now have only a "metaphorical" meaning, or must be understood from a different perspective.

If every word in the Bible is subject to this convenient wishy-washy fanciful method of interpretation, then it's a lousy foundation for a system of faith. You cannot follow anything that you can change the meaning of by arbitrarily saying, "That part is meant to be understood non-literally." The Bible, as it stands now, is either a 100% true book that we humans are incapable of understanding; OR a book that we are meant to learn from that also has lots of loopholes in it. It cannot be both, not as it stands now. The whole Bible should be re-written such that what's left in it is literal unmistakable unfudgeable truth. I think it would be a very, very short book, or, a much longer book filled with qualifications, something along these lines:

I'm well aware that many Christians have compromised with the world and reinterpreted the bible to reflect worldly wisdom, but I'm not one of them. Though not everything in the bible (like the song of solomon for instance) could, or should be taken literally, I believe it contains the literal history of planet Earth. As I've explained in other threads, I didn't always believe that. I assumed where science said it was right, the bible was wrong. It was only when I questioned that and investigated the evidence that I found it was the other way around. I believe the bible is true not only because of revelation, but because of the evidence, not in spite of it. You have unfairly mischaracterized me, because I am the last person you will talk to who will turn the bible into a metaphor to avoid the facts.

Otherwise, as you seem to fear about secular morality, the Bible itself could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything by anyone at any time, if they thought hard enough about it.

I don't fear that, I know that. You're absolutely right, you could make the bible say anything you want to. People do it all the time. It's only a literal reading that makes any sense. Even atheists know that:

destroy adam and eve and original sin and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God and take away the meaning of His death

-american atheist association

>> ^messenger:

stuff

@shinyblurry

Now you're just using fallacious arguments. Why don't you present your very best argument as to what you think falsifies the Bible and let's see if it holds any water?

Fallacious arguments? Every time I point out a mistake, you invent a convenient new rule for understanding the Bible (or more likely you copy-paste what it says on some apologia clearinghouse website). I could literally find a quote that says, "oranges are black" and you'd justify it somehow. I just found a passage that gives two incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham. And in a book that's supposed to be completely true, you excuse it by telling me the writers are taking artistic licence? WTF????? This isn't a poetry slam! It's the bloody word of God! If you claim everything in it is true, so much so that you've given up sex, condemn gay people, etc., then everything else in it *must* be literally true or you have no foundation for giving up sex or condemning gay people. Those could be metaphorical warnings about the lure of great pleasures in general. Either one of those things about Joram and Joatham written in the Bible is false, or anyone can point to any passage and call it optional, or poetry, or a style of writing, or just a metaphor. You can't have it both ways.

I didn't pull it out of thin air. Scripture says do not test the Lord thy God. You haven't proven anything. God will not let you test Him with personal prayer any more than He will let you test Him through the prayers of others.

And from the other thread:

Or perhaps He had sovereignly arranged for only insincere prayers or prayers outside of His will to be prayed for at that time which would give the results of the test the appearance of randomness.

First, I'm saying the effects of personal prayer *can* be scientifically measured, so either your contention that God will not be tested is bunk, or self-prayer is really just meditation. You also didn't understand the set-up of the prayer-for-other test. In that scenario, there were real ill people in the hospitals, and they compared the outcomes for patients who had had others sincerely praying for them from a distance versus those who didn't. IOW, the sincere prayer happened. There has never been any measured health benefit for the ill people. They died off and recovered in equal numbers.

You keep saying that my position is one of cognitive dissonance. Look at yourself. You twist your mind into any shape you need for your dogma to hold true, never once truly considering the possibility that it's all in your head. You've said the words that you might be wrong, but you've never shown it's more than lip service. I've never seen you take a critical eye to your position on God and the Bible, despite the numerous opportunities I and others have given to you.

And this is exactly what Feynman's talking about when he says the scientific approach starts from the position that all hypotheses are wrong, then goes about trying to prove it through observation. Anything that's still standing afterwards is good scientific theory. Religion, on the other hand, starts from the assuming the conclusion that God and the Bible are real, and any observational facts that don't line up must themselves be wrong facts, no matter how well documented they are. And when those facts can no longer be denied, then the Bible passages in question are suddenly no longer considered to have literal meaning, and now have only a "metaphorical" meaning, or must be understood from a different perspective.

If every word in the Bible is subject to this convenient wishy-washy fanciful method of interpretation, then it's a lousy foundation for a system of faith. You cannot follow anything that you can change the meaning of by arbitrarily saying, "That part is meant to be understood non-literally." The Bible, as it stands now, is either a 100% true book that we humans are incapable of understanding; OR a book that we are meant to learn from that also has lots of loopholes in it. It cannot be both, not as it stands now. The whole Bible should be re-written such that what's left in it is literal unmistakable unfudgeable truth. I think it would be a very, very short book, or, a much longer book filled with qualifications, something along these lines:

"In the beginning (the beginning of time as we know it in the universe) God created the heavens and the earth (meaning the whole universe, and not necessarily that quickly—there could be a gap of several billion years all of which could still be considered "the beginning"; the "days" that pass are metaphorical, and do not represent normal days as we know them, nor did those things necessarily happen in that order). 2 Now the earth was formless (in the sense that it hadn't been defined yet as separate from the heavens) and empty (in the sense that it didn't have anything living on it, though it did have mass, including water and dirt supporting it), darkness was over the surface of the deep (the deep of the ocean; there was already light somewhere else, but there was still darkness in that location), and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (this is not to be interpreted as God only being present in one place; this is a metaphor for a protective watcher)."

Otherwise, as you seem to fear about secular morality, the Bible itself could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything by anyone at any time, if they thought hard enough about it.

OK, I couldn't stop at just 12 minutes, now 27 minutes in and listening to Brian try to invent reasonings for still taking everything in the bible as written and to still be true is mind numbing...

I'm amazed that people in these positions can not see that they spend so much of their time creating loopholes and obtuse explanations to be able to keep their world view. How can they not stop for a minute and go

'Huh... you know, it seems I have to expend an awful lot of energy trying to create explanations against what seems so blatantly obvious... I have to stop any time I think of something that goes against the bible even though it makes sense. I have to stop and invent an excuse as to why the illogical thing in the bible is actually true instead of what seems so obvious and right.'
'Maybe I should give pause to continuing to believe in the bible if I have to spend so much time creating excuses for it'.

It's kind of like having a friend or relative that you know is a dick, but you keep making excuses for them despite that.

"No, yeah, I know he comes across as a bit dickish, but he has a good heart."
"Yes, I know he stoned your friend to death because he took the lord's name in vein, but that was done with love"

Coming from the side of rationality and compassion requires so much less work, doesn't require mental gymnastics, just one sentence.

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"

Or, as in the King James version of the Bible: "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

Holman Christian Standard Bible : "Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. "
God's word translation: "Do for other people everything you want them to do for you."
Amplified Bible: "And as you would like and desire that men would do to you, do exactly so to them"


I don't get how anyone can say that the Bible is the word of god.... which version? Which translation? Which edition? Which copy of the bible altered to suit the current rulers?

If I do something or say something wrong to a person, I ask forgiveness from both my God and the person I did it to, as I did with you. The great commandments are to love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength, and also, to love thy neighbor as yourself. I think a Christian who does something wrong should do what is reasonable to reconcile with people who they have wronged.

As far as the cake goes, the man didn't refuse service because the men were gay. He was more than happy to make them a cake, just not a gay wedding cake. I don't see how you're inserting the word hatred into the discussion. The man has a sincere conviction that gay marriage is wrong and he doesn't want to participate in it. The question really being posed is, is this unchristian not to make this cake?

For one, Jesus didn't tell us not to judge, He told us not to judge hypocritically. That is what is meant by the log in someones eye versus the splinter in the other. Christians are to judge all things to see if they line up to the word of God. Now, would you think it is wrong for a Pastor to refuse to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony? I don't think you could say it was unchristian for the Pastor to refuse to do it, on the basis of his moral conviction. Well, this baker also had a moral conviction about supplying the cake for the ceremony. His conviction is to make wedding cakes for heterosexual weddings only because he believes gay marriage is immoral. I really don't see anything wrong with this; it isn't loving your neighbor to help someone along in their sin. Neither do I think he should be forced to violate his conscience by lending his reputation to something he knows God disapproves of.

In the name of tolerance, people are coming out of the woodwork to bash Christian businesses like Chick-fil-a on the basis of their beliefs about homosexuality being a sin. A lot of these are setups; the gay community gets wind of a Christian business who has strong convictions, and then they send someone in to get refused so they can go to the media and create a bunch of hype and drama and generate sympathy. In the end, the hatred and intolerance seems to be entirely one sided. Christians don't hate gays; Jesus died as much for them as He did for the rest of us. Christians who do hate gays are simply ignorant and wrong and they should be chastised. That doesn't mean you should indict Christianity as a whole, because true Christians recognize that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

>> ^UsesProzac:

Business has doubled since the incident? I really don't understand why religious people glorify in the hatred of others. I've seen it firsthand in extended family members and it chills me. How can Christians ignore the gospel of loving thy neighbor and judge not and all those other fancy things their prophet said in their own religious text?
@shinyblurry, how do you reconcile that hypocrisy within yourself? You're the only person I know to ask here, seeing as you called me a harlot and all that. When you judge another person and go directly against the words set down in your bible, do you immediately ask your god to forgive you or what?
Edit: I'll throw in one of my favorite quotes to further illustrate the rampant hypocrisy.
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” - Stephen Colbert

Although, you cannot earn your salvation, there are rewards in Heaven based on what you did here on Earth.

This is news to me... I believe Mormons teach this, but all other denominations preach that when you accept the Holy Spirit, it moves you to do good deeds... that the good deeds aren't your own.

Neither is it meaningless to follow the two greatest commandments:
Love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your mind, and with all of your strength.
and
Love thy neighbor as yourself
Unless you count loving God and your fellow man as meaningless, they are both a reward onto themselves and filled with meaning.

You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding me here. I was very specifically using the definition of 'meaningless' that the speaker above uses... as in, 'meaning nothing after you die'.

The judgment is about sin. Your friends, along with every Christian, have transgressed Gods laws, and the wages of sin is death. The difference is, Christians have received Gods pardon for their transgressions, whereas unbelievers have rejected it and thus have to face God on their own merits.

My point exactly. The only thing that matters is that you've accepted Jesus as your Savior. NOTHING else matters... hence it is meaningless.

Any branch of Christianity that doesn't take a hard stance against violence is twisting the Bible to their own selfish ends... which is, unfortunately, most of them.

A Christian is simply someone who has been born again, and has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and the true church is the body of Christ. Regardless of what a denomination might say, a Christian should consult the word of God:
Matthew 26:52
Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

You completely ignored my point here. Except for the Mennonites, there are no other denominations (in the US) that take a hard stance against violence. None. Zero. This country is 80% Christian, and yet we've been at war for 209 of 235 years of our existence.

Let me be very clear on this: ALL CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS IN THE US ARE FALSE purely based on this one single fact (again, excluding Mennonites)... Granted, that doesn't prove that God doesn't exist... but it certainly does mean that I can't trust any US-based Christians...

I agree with everything you're saying here. Christians are to love their enemies, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who despitefully use them. We are to unconditionally love everyone, because they are in the image of God, and because God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. That is the model of behavior He has given us.

What have you done to end discrimination (of ALL types)? Have you participated in any protests against wars, for Gay Marriage, for Women's Rights? Have you stood up in Church to let everyone know that you think it's wrong to discriminate against others, regardless of what they've done?



I'd recommend reading up on philosophy, logical debate, and comparative religion... and finding a denomination that is above reproach. The reason Atheists always seem to have the same 'tired' arguments all the time is because we don't need to have new ones... the old arguments still come out in our favor.

While there are a LOT of things I want to comment on, I'd like to point out one thing that I very vehemently agree with. While I can't say that I believe that Jesus was the 'ideal' man, I can say that he's someone that a vast majority of people I know could aspire to emulating.

I'm glad that we can agree on Jesus. I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Changed-World-Alvin-Schmidt/dp/0310264499

It's not Jesus that is the problem, as awesome of a guy as he was (allegedly). Christianity teaches that it is not the actions that grant you access to Heaven, it is God's Grace. Whether it's Grace because you've acknowledged Jesus as your Lord, or Grace through TULIP-style pre-destination... All of an individual Christian's actions (except for the 'I Believe' action) are, in fact, meaningless. If the speaker thought more about his own Christian Philosophy, rather than de-contextualizing Atheists' quotes, he'd have realized this already.

That isn't true though. Although, you cannot earn your salvation, there are rewards in Heaven based on what you did here on Earth. Neither is it meaningless to follow the two greatest commandments:

Love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your mind, and with all of your strength.

and

Love thy neighbor as yourself

Unless you count loving God and your fellow man as meaningless, they are both a reward onto themselves and filled with meaning.

If Christian 'Judgement' were based on actions and not belief in God (hence, their actions and lives had meaning), as many of my non-Christian friends would make it into Heaven as my Christian friends...

The judgment is about sin. Your friends, along with every Christian, have transgressed Gods laws, and the wages of sin is death. The difference is, Christians have received Gods pardon for their transgressions, whereas unbelievers have rejected it and thus have to face God on their own merits.

One specific data point is violence. Every one of my non-christian friends is non-violent. They oppose violence, both offensive and defensive. Never once did Jesus EVER advocate any form of violence. And, if you take his life as a blueprint, he proved his mettle by submitting to being crucified, even stopping the people who would have defended him.

Jesus said this:

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

There are some Christians who are non-violent (Mostly Mennonites/Amish)... I respect them. Others, not-so-much. Any branch of Christianity that doesn't take a hard stance against violence is twisting the Bible to their own selfish ends... which is, unfortunately, most of them.

A Christian is simply someone who has been born again, and has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and the true church is the body of Christ. Regardless of what a denomination might say, a Christian should consult the word of God:

Matthew 26:52

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Lest you think I'm cherry-picking, read the Beatitudes... You'll read about being meek, righteous, merciful, peacemakers and persecuted... But you won't see anything that could have justified the Crusades, Slavery or Gay-Hate.

I agree with everything you're saying here. Christians are to love their enemies, bless those who curse them, and pray for those who despitefully use them. We are to unconditionally love everyone, because they are in the image of God, and because God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. That is the model of behavior He has given us.

So, as an Atheist, let me go on the Record... I don't dis-believe in God... I dis-believe in the God that is worshiped by Christians. I also have very specific issues with other Religions, but that can wait for another time. Given that I've found all of the Religions that I've encountered to be as 'bad' as any others... My position is that God may or may not exist, but if He DOES exist, He won't be found in any current religious textbooks...

I'll just say that God deeply loves you, and wants you to know Him personally.

(FYI, I'm one of the "life is meaningless" people that the speaker seems to think can't exist. I can stare into the Abyss and take pleasure walking the line, knowing one day I'll fall in and vanish utterly. It does not, in any way, depress me.)

I don't think he said they don't exist, I think he said that on one hand you may believe it, but on the other hand, you don't live as if everything is meaningless.

>> ^hatsix

I almost had an small adult circumcision for medical reasons (simply TOO BIG for the foreskin), but me a doctorman decided that we didn't have to cut too much, and just did a little snip thing. YOU HAVEN'T EXPERIENCED FEAR UNTIL BLOOD RUNS FROM YOUR PENIS!

Anyways, that was an example of an actual good reason for getting it. Mutilating children with this is just barbaric. We don't cut off parts of the ear, just because we get earwax, or because we have to "hear the word of God" - but we do if our earlobe gets skin cancer.


Reason, people. Germany has it. Well, they do now.

Shiny once accused me of watching Zeitgeist as well... I always thought it was a 9/11 conspiracy film... I half want to see the film now to see how it goes from Christ myth to 9/11 conspiracy...

Apologist always like pointing out that things that don't matter when talking about the stuff like Horis, the Babylonian Lord of the Harvest and other gods who died and resurrected. There is plenty of pre-Christian stories of them. True the specific details are often post-Christianity, but the general concept has been around long before the Old Testament was put down to paper, back when was just a verbal story passed from generation to generation... somehow avoiding the issues that come up when one plays the telephone game... and somehow avoiding all the errors that we know and can prove cropped up after it was written and copied by hand. When the Israelites were in Babylon, they learned of a Babylonian god which was a god of harvesting, and he sacrificed himself and rose again. It doesn't matter if the time frame of the resurrection was added after Christianity came around, the general story itself existed before Christianity, indeed even before the Old Testament was written in any sort of form we have available today.

I think two important videos relate:
http://videosift.com/video/A-History-of-God-Part-1
http://videosift.com/video/Dr-Bart-Ehrman-Historically-accurate-criticism-of-the-Bible

<snipped a long rant about Christians shopping or going to restaurants on Sunday after church, thereby making people who may have wanted to be at church have to work instead and a lot more...>

There is just so much one has to take on faith... not only the existence of God, but that the errors from repeating the stories, even after they were written down, were God's will, and that the version used by translators is the one God wanted to use, not earlier, supposedly more accurate to the source versions (the Dr. Bart Ethrman video linked above is a nice one for that, in regards to the story of the woman at the well not being in the original texts or commentaries for centuries, but then it appears and everyone likes it so it stuck). You have to take it on faith that not only did fallible men who preserved the word, copied it (errors made not being a result of fallibility but of divine will), translated it, etc. did everything they did perfectly in regards to the Bible. Then fallible men at the Council of Nycea and others that established the books that are generally accepted, somehow were the only ones to become infallible when picking the books that would be in the Bible... differences between the Catholic Bible and Protestant Bible being ignored because many protestants say Catholics aren't even Christian anyhow...Then you have to take it on faith that every person since those times who has had a revelation from God is crazy. You also have to take it on faith that every book or document relating to the church that has been found since then was hidden by God. All to create the perfect infallible word of god...

Anyhow, I am getting off track and enough feeding the troll.

>> ^KnivesOut:

I didn't know Jesus was a fan of sarcasm, this actually explains a lot. If all those nonsensical passages of scripture were actually misinterpreted sarcasm, the bible would make a lot more sense.
Imagine how many stonings could have been avoided if only other Christians had your sense of sarcasm. Also that passage about plucking out your eye if it offends... that MUST have been sarcasm.
Shinyblurry, thank you so much for opening the word of god to all us heathens, so we can see just how much bullshit it really is.>> ^shinyblurry:
Sure, arm a bunch of kids with a modicum of training and high powered weaponry..keep tossing them into combat zones where they are under constant, crippling stress, and they see their buddies killed and peoples heads blown off on a regular basis..keep redeploying them, over and over, with no time to rest until their heads are so messed up that if they don't commit suicide, they never fit into society again..but hey, we can't let any religion in there. That is very disturbing. The peace and strength they get from Jesus in those insane, brutal and emotionally devastating situations is something we as a nation just can't tolerate.
So, I thank you HQPQ for calling attention to this. Until now, we as a nation had honestly collectively abandoned the soldiers and their families. After all, there are only so many news reports you can watch about the war before it all becomes very boring and just yesterdays news. But you've breathed new life into the issue..we can finally care again. Let's all go to that website and make sure none of our treasured sons and daughters will ever hear anything that could bring them relief as we callously send them forth to murder our enemies in the name of freedom and forget that they ever existed.




Actually, Jesus did use sarcasm:

Luke 13:31

The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee.

And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.

Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.

Jesus was saying that He had to keep working so He could get to Jerusalem, because it wouldn't be fitting for a prophet to die outside of it (since they were prone to murder all of the prophets God sent to them)

I didn't know Jesus was a fan of sarcasm, this actually explains a lot. If all those nonsensical passages of scripture were actually misinterpreted sarcasm, the bible would make a lot more sense.

Imagine how many stonings could have been avoided if only other Christians had your sense of sarcasm. Also that passage about plucking out your eye if it offends... that MUST have been sarcasm.

Shinyblurry, thank you so much for opening the word of god to all us heathens, so we can see just how much bullshit it really is.>> ^shinyblurry:

Sure, arm a bunch of kids with a modicum of training and high powered weaponry..keep tossing them into combat zones where they are under constant, crippling stress, and they see their buddies killed and peoples heads blown off on a regular basis..keep redeploying them, over and over, with no time to rest until their heads are so messed up that if they don't commit suicide, they never fit into society again..but hey, we can't let any religion in there. That is very disturbing. The peace and strength they get from Jesus in those insane, brutal and emotionally devastating situations is something we as a nation just can't tolerate.
So, I thank you HQPQ for calling attention to this. Until now, we as a nation had honestly collectively abandoned the soldiers and their families. After all, there are only so many news reports you can watch about the war before it all becomes very boring and just yesterdays news. But you've breathed new life into the issue..we can finally care again. Let's all go to that website and make sure none of our treasured sons and daughters will ever hear anything that could bring them relief as we callously send them forth to murder our enemies in the name of freedom and forget that they ever existed.

The size of the Universe does not determine our relative significance in it. Why should Gods letter to mankind focus on mankind? Because He wrote the letter to mankind?

If the bible were a collection of mere stories then Islam couldn't be true, since Islam, like mormonism, is derivative of Christianity. Islam is a 6th century cult which claims to have extra-biblical revelation, which is flatly condemned by scripture.


>> ^mentality:

>> ^shinyblurry:
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

Feynman is not saying that god can't touch something on the scale of the universe. Feynman is saying how self centered, naive and provincial your silly little bible is to only focus on our tiny little insignificant corner of the universe.
Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?
Also, what I want to know is, what makes your understanding of a creator more correct than other religions? Why not follow Islam? I hear they have the direct word from god himself, far superior than your collection of mere stories.

>> ^shinyblurry:
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?


Feynman is not saying that god can't touch something on the scale of the universe. Feynman is saying how self centered, naive and provincial your silly little bible is to only focus on our tiny little insignificant corner of the universe.

Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?

Also, what I want to know is, what makes your understanding of a creator more correct than other religions? Why not follow Islam? I hear they have the direct word from god himself, far superior than your collection of mere stories.

There's a question that causes debate among many believers, and that is the age old question... Are Jesus and God the same? Well, it does say that "for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son", so naturally you would think the answer is a simple no.


On the contrary,

John 8:58

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

Jesus not only claimed to pre-exist Abraham, but He took the divine name, I am, for Himself:

Exodus 3:13-15

13Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’

The jews knew exactly what He was saying, which is the reason they were trying to kill Him

Jesus claimed to be equal with God:

John 5:17-18

17Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God

And again:

John 10:30-34

I and my Father are one.

Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

Again, the jews were trying to kill Him because He claimed to be God.

Here again, Jesus claims the divine name for Himself:

Mark 12:35-37

And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David?

For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The LORD said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.

David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.

Notice that He is referring to David as the "Lord" and Himself as the "LORD". The "LORD" is God.

Jesus often referred to Himself as the Son of Man..who is the Son of Man?

Daniel 7:13-15

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed

The Son of Man is the rightful heir to the divine throne who will rule, forever, and only God receives worship:

Matthew 4:10

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Jesus received worship many times, never correcting them:

Matthew 2:2

Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Matthew 14:33

And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!

Matthew 28:9

And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.

John 9:35-38

Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

36 He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?”

Scripture also declares that He is God:

John 1:1;14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth

John 20:28-29,

"Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed

Heb. 1:8, "But of the Son He says, 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom.'"

The reason God became a person is what the gospel is all about. If you're asking how, I think that would be a trivial thing for God to do. Jesus came as a man to reconcile men back to God. All men are sinners, and we have a corrupt nature predisposed to sin. We've all broken Gods laws, and the wages of our sin is death. Jesus, however lived a perfect, sinless life, which qualified Him to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He took all of our sins upon Himself and took the punishment that we deserved on the cross. In this, He reconciled the two natures. We have a sinful, corrupt nature which is separated from God..but He brought the righteousness of God into it by becoming a man and imbued into mans nature, so that we could once again have fellowship with God..but it is only through His righteousness that we are justified. That is why He is the way, the truth and the life.









>> ^lurgee