>> ^acidSpine:
I hope they're going to eat those


Naw. Too salty.

Yeah, I really didn't need to hear Count Dooku say "pelvic thrust." Extra credit for rolling the R's, though.

Gun control activists focus on what they perceive as the root of violent crime...the weapon. Jesus focused on the true root of violent crime...the heart. We commit murder out of hatred in our hearts, even before physically committing such an act.

Remove guns and ignore hatred, and you create a vacuum that will quickly be filled. (Not going to ramble about how gun control laws are ineffective against those who habitually break the law). I would be more impressed with a focus on what leads to such violent acts in the first place. Hatred and glorification of violence would be more suitable starting points.

Excellent movie. Dig the cool cats with the big hair. West Side Story would eventually keep them out of the unemployment lines...

Wow. Looks pretty easy to make, except for timing the pipe organ with the fly swatter.

How DID we survive the 80's?

Dude probably wore his mirror out practicing this stuff.

Look like bad CGI of Bane's transformation for a really low-budget Batman movie.

The magical flashy pants might qualify him as an entirely new supervillian, though.

^MaxWilder

1) Who rolled the dice, where did the die come from? How did the die come to have impact? Reiterate the statistical argument to me however you want, you can't get around a supernatural origin an point zero. Just because "science may never be able to prove or disprove" that point, my belief that God fills in the blank is no less valid in my own beliefs.

2) The writers of the New Testament were Jews. If you read carefully the account of Jesus' life, its events are not exactly high on the priority list to jot down for those who did not believe. Those who rejected Christ at the time thought Him irrelevant at best, scandalous at worst. Do you seriously think there should be a police blotter in Jerusalem at the time recording the temporary disruption of money changers and vendors at the temple? Do you not see a motive for non-believing Jews to conveniently omit him? "Yeah, there was this man of God going around and healing folks, but then we killed him. Let's write down the first part, but not the second."

3) The "Thou Shalt Not Kill/Murder" argument against the Bible is an old standby. I posted on a different video the distinction made in Romans 13 that God empowers governments to, among other things, "bring punishment to the wrongdoer." The 10 commandments, and Jesus' subsequent teachings are clearly applicable on a personal/individual level. It would be a sin for me to go to war with the express purpose of working out my own desires of hatred or revenge. According to Jesus, even having the hatred in the first place is the same sin as murder.

4) You accuse me of knowing little about the Bible, when you use convenient shreds of it to build your own arguments. Peter's denial of Christ had a very definite place and purpose. Christ bore the suffering of the cross completely on His own, even suffering separation from God the Father as He bore the sins of the world. If you bother reading any further, Peter is reconciled to Christ and given a mission to establish the Church and watch after Jesus' sheep, the sting of the previous betrayal now fueling conviction he didn't have before. By all accounts, each of the 12 (save John) met a violent end. You have not refuted my argument.

My whole purpose in this thread is to better understand why it is so important for you science-minded atheists to deconstruct religion, Christianity in particular. Why are we such a nuisance to you? Does your keen intellect not allow you to ignore our "ignorance?" Are your feelings hurt when we believe in a heaven and a hell, separated by belief in Christ? Do the actions of a few of our outlying members truly outweigh the collective good of the movement? Are you focusing on what you perceive as hypocrisy?

I find it ironic that I am the one most often accused of intolerance.

He's more of a centrist on many issues than you might think.

Although I'm sure he's got right-winger creds with most of you, he does tend to think through both sides of the issue more often that most journalists on either side of the spectrum.

^Psychologic

Word.

Forgive my skepticism. Something doesn't smell right with this story. America is the only country not distributing this? The same country that covets controversy to gain attention and buzz?

So, Hollywood never puts out anything sacreligious to draw the ire of Christians? Religulous was just some kind of fluke?

I agree with Jaace far enough to say that somebody needs to muster some courage here. I am a Christian, and I also adamantly defend freedom of speech. If this is important enough to put out, somebody should step up and do it. If it creates debate, God bless America and our freedom to do so.

Just don't paint this as a one-sided argument. Gibson had to self-finance Passion of the Christ and walked a gauntlet trying to get the movie distributed. There were protests and howls from every possible angle, and the movie was banned in several countries.

We have lost our civility on BOTH sides, gang.

Wow. I'm accused of making lazy arguments, when some of the best you guys can throw at me is that we have 100% odds of living on the planet we live on under the conditions that currently exist. That's not lazy?

"Well, we're here, so how we got here is irrelevant."

I take no offense to you cutting directly to an attack on my Bible. The premise of my argument did the same thing with science, so that's fair play.

I do take exception to how off-handedly dismiss the Bible, though. The Bible has been validated through historical accuracy of events depicted, is a unique document in all of human history, and is validated through the fulfillment of prophecy over time.

The lazy argument probably on the tip of your tongue is that the Bible has been altered a bazillion times to make it look like it got the story right. You've got quite a steep slope to climb to make that argument. The Bible includes 40 authors, 3 languages, 3 continents, and a authorship span of 1500 years. Studies have verified that the transcripts have held up without material alteration according to the earliest known records.

The type of forgery necessary to corrupt the Bible we know today is a feat I doubt would be possible even in this day and age. You'd have to destroy every prior copy and convincingly alter remnant copies, all the while leaving no historical footprint to tell the tale.

I posed a scientific question to see how entrenched you all were about the notion that God could not exist. I'm still not impressed with the answers.

If you want to get into a theological debate on whether my Bible is rubbish...I ask a similar question. Why would Jesus' disciples subject themselves to being cultural outcasts and ultimately suffer fates of excile and execution if they didn't truly believe in the message? Wouldn't at least one of them, seeing their reflection in the executioner's sword, yell out "Just kidding!" unless they passionately knew theirs was the most important message of all time?

^JoeDirt

Your arguments were impressive, but fell well short of what I was hoping for.

First: Your main answer to my "gotcha" question was that we don't know and what I'm looking for is probably unknowable. I appreciate the primer on current scientific theory, but I was indulging in skipping to the end. I'm sure there will be mind blowing theories and constructs out there before I die, but I guarantee you NONE will be able to explain what "force" brought the earliest point of origin into being. The whole "we're experiencing an infinite repetitive loop" doesn't get you there. Something had to make this little sandbox our universe is spinning in.

Second: You did manage to provide me one answer I was looking for. By your own words, there is a lot we don't know on the basis of science alone, and what we do know is subject to revision and update. Given that, I don't see how any legitimate self-respecting scientist could adamantly conclude that there is no God. Where is the concrete evidence for that conclusion? In this day and age, I see SCIENCE = RELIGION in its own right. I've encountered religious nuts in your corner way further out on a limb than I am with my dusty old Bible.

To everyone else. Can you honestly take in the astounding sights, sounds, and wonders of the world around us and not at least consider the possibility that this was not all the result of ridiculously improbable chaos? The order and certainty, which I thank Science for demonstrating, in the laws of physics and gravity...you can honestly say "gee, neat that it all just came together like that?" Our planet alone would have had to have been to result of 10,000,000 lottery odds occurrences all happening in concert. Nothing was behind that?

You science guys have far more faith than I!

^acidSpine:

You're jumping ahead of the argument and dodging my question. How can any scientific theory on the origin of the universe get around a supernatural source based on the questions I posed?

You just skipped straight to attacking my Bible. Your criteria is that it doesn't fill in every minutia detail you feel you need before it's worthy of belief. We can debate faith another time.

Before you deconstruct what my religion says, the argument I'm putting forward as asking about YOUR religion. No matter how advanced or far-reaching your scientific theories, how do you get around the necessity of supernatural origin in the creation of matter, time, and energy itself?

Well, I thank God that I'm neither.

You scientists and philosophers seem to have things pretty well figured out. It's just that I've never received a satisfactory answer to what I believe is a very simple question.

Which scientific theory, current or to be concocted in the future, can explain any portion of creation without having to jump to supernatural origin? Big bang, string theory... Where did matter come from? What started time itself? Where did energy come from?

I don't believe there will ever be a theory that can jump the tracks to answer those questions. That's the paradox you live in.