Religion

[atomic7732]

I didn't mean you were TRULY wrong, I meant that what your idea of what I was trying to say was wrong.

And, I'm getting tired of this topic. All that's in here is the same thing... the past page. Back and forth, same thing...

[atomic7732]

I have a valid statement. I think it is almost ALL a metaphor. Even the creation of the universe.

In the beginning it was all black. = It was mostly black, we are talking about the solar system not being there.
7 days = A VERY LONG TIME, but short in cosmic times.

See?

[Bla]

I have a valid statement. I think it is almost ALL a metaphor. Even the creation of the universe.

In the beginning it was all black. = It was mostly black, we are talking about the solar system not being there.
7 days = A VERY LONG TIME, but short in cosmic times.

See?

Well, then you can probably make any book look correct, including all the other "holy" books?

Do you mean that seven days is a metaphor for a long period of time, like millions or billions of years? As I said earlier, the order in which the life came doesn't work out, for example the plants would have no Sun for their photosynthesis for a whole day, how long that may ever be.
But if it's all metaphorical, what can we use it for, and how can we see that christianity is the true religion?

Anyways, I can only wonder why wasting "holy" scripture space on metaphors which often have nothing to do with truth. As I said earlier, I don't buy that all of those mistakes are just metaphors, maybe a few, but not many of them.

I'm not completely sure if I've understood what you mean about the seven days correctly.

[Laura]

The "it's all metaphor" interpretation is a copout.
For it to work, you need the á priori assumption that the book must be true. Then follows the work of interpreting and twisting it until it fits the facts to your level of requirement to suspend disbelief.
Just like it is with the cryptic writings of Nostradamus, it can be twisted to mean anything, as long as the reader believes that there really is truth in there.
Isn't it more reasonable to posit that the book means to say exactly what it in fact does say?

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

[atomic7732]

*leaves topic* 

[Bla]

There's something I have to say. All of this religion stuff, in fact, there is one religion that sounds... True. I'll prove it to you in this video I made yesterday, when supernatural powers decided to step into my Universe Sandbox simulation in March:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJyTMGQUagU

[atomic7732]

[Bla]

Spoiler.
Okay, I'll be serious now...

[atomic7732]

 

[Bla]

Richard Dawkins just made an awesome speech after the taxpayers money in Great Britain have been spent on the pope's visit. The first thing the pope did was, of course, to blame atheists for nazism, which we've already dealt with in this topic and showed how blatant a lie it is.
This is truly awesome to see, even though I'll have to see it on YouTube rather than on real TV.

Link to the speech

Johann Hari also made a very good speech:

Link

And here are some few pages with useful evidence to show that nazi Germany was not only not atheistic, but in fact a very christian nation, and that those who claim hitler's evilness was inspired by evolution, that book was banned from the country. It's absolutely ridiculous arguments and it surprises me that the pope is making such an ignorant statement that any educated person in the world could destroy.

Pictures
More pictures
P.Z. Meyer's blog post about banned books
hitler's quotes about religion

[Darvince]

The first thing the pope did was, of course, to blame atheists for nazism,

Wtf No. I feel that it is a scam.

[atomic7732]

Nazism isn't even a religion.

[Bla]

The first thing the pope did was, of course, to blame atheists for nazism,

Wtf No. I feel that it is a scam.

What is a scam? Do you think it's a lie that he blamed atheists for nazism, or did the pope lie?
You'd better bet on the last one, here's a full text of his speech the first day he arrived in GB:
Link

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society

Epic fail.

and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live.

Epic irony. Guess who started this hate (small hint: "Christ-killers")?
It is indeed horrible what was done to the Jews. I wonder why he didn't mention any of the other groups who were denied their common humanity and sent to concentration camps under Hitler's religious extremist regime, like gays... But oh, wait, this fool still bigoted towards them.

Nazism isn't even a religion.

It's an ideology, yes. Though many religions do share similarities with ideologies. Not all ideologies are neccesarily evil; we probably all have one ideology we think is good, many in USA would probably see Liberalism/Capitalism as good ideologies.
But of course Nazism was an obviously evil ideology.

[Bla]

This is absolutely insane. A documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church... They thank god for everything, even the holocaust, they have paintings in their rooms of natural disasters, they do nothing else than worshipping their imaginary dictator, spreading hate and disturbing people at funerals with their insanity. If anyone leaves, even their children, they just close off and try to show absolutely no feelings.
I did know about them and their opinions, but I hadn't imagined anyone could be so absolutely insane. It is incredible how big an influence indoctrination can have on people.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

It is good that we have some super heroes to save the world from this evilness.

[matty406]

Ha, watched that last night.
They say that if Christ were to return he would be glad for what they did and do. I, for one, think he would be disgusted. (Considering there is a deity, I'm agnostic.)

[Naru523]

Heh, pretty weird and lol'd at the protests (I'm seeing some Star Wars and Team Fortress). My cousins are Catholic, and probably my family too, although we mostly are Shaman.

[atomic7732]

They get their kids into it? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[matty406]

They get their kids into it? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

This. There was a lad that had such a potty mouth when talking about homosexuality I never thought I would hear on a child of his age.

[space guy1]

Wow, though that doesnt surprise me. religion seems to attract all the idiots so that they drown out the sensible people.  and there are sensible people who are heavily religious.  many people just take the hate side and ignore the calls of acceptance and forgiveness.(like many stereotypical muslims)  religion is one of the best and worst things to ever happen to humanity.  (art/architecture,culture:idiots, KKK, and religious wars)

[Bla]

I present to you: The Periodic Table of Atheists.

I knew Hk, H, Nt, Pz (writer of the great blog Pharyngula), Ep, Mh, D, Sa, Lk, Bg, S, Db, Sk, Ag (LOL), Tm, Dd, Cd, E, Hg, Kw, Pc, Ac, Jr, Be, Tf, Ar (writer of the great blog Atheist Revolution) and Ec.

27/118 = 22.88%.

And sort of Jn too, if that's the Beatle-guy. I guess it is.

How many of them did you know?

[Darvince]

wtf

[hohonator]

Are you religious?
Do you believe in a god?

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any god.

Oh, and I doubt religious debates are allowed... So, unless Dan says we may, please don't come with evidence for/against anything.

Hope this was written neutral enough. I'm not good at writing neutral about religions.
I discuss religions nearly every day.

EDIT: Seems like Dan thinks it's ok that we discuss religion.

W00T

[Bla]

I have described the poll options in the first post, because I'm not very happy with how some of the poll options are worded anymore (but changing them would be sort of unfair now, and I think it might also reset the poll).

Here in Denmark, I always hear from people that they don't believe Christianity to be true, but like Jesus' moral nonsense and plagiarism (and some even identify as Christians for this reason. I don't get why they don't identify as Buddhists, Ghandiists, Dawkinists, whateverists too, at the same time, when being that no longer means anything more than just agreeing with what the person/religion says).
The Old Testament is easy to refute as moral garbage and insanity, which I think most Christians can agree with (even though many people still think that the Ten Commandments were actually not only good, but also the most relevant ten, simple commandments which people could live by).
Anyway, this video points out some of the errors and other things in some of the things Jesus said:
http://www.atheistmedia.com/2011/07/was-jesus-worth-following.html
If you watch it on YouTube, you must be at least 18. I'm not sure why, but you have been warned.

It also critizises some of the things which could be very helpful in a holy book from that time, but which were lacking. I agree he or some of the other people in The Bible should had included some information about medicine, maybe something about not enslaving people, and a clear condemnation of what it said earlier in Leviticus about gays, plus a part saying they were equal, and something about women being equal would be useful as well, so we wouldn't have people being confused by the part telling them to shut up. And lots of other good information. Imagine the amount of suffering that could have saved us from, and how evil it would be of an omnipotent, omniscient thing not to care the slightest about it.

[Darvince]

so you are my sister. i gotcha now.

[Bla]

I wish I had been viewing this forum when this thread started so all this crap would have not built up.  The atheists have made a rather long run at it without any rebuttals.  I'll see how much time I am willing to use up here.

I am waiting in excitement to see what this crap is.

Starting with the whole 6 days of creation versus billions of years:

Theists wanting to be informed can go to this website and read, since I don't have the time nor could I do a better job at explaining it.  What you will learn on this website was BEFORE Darwin and was the common thought on the matter.

http://www.kjvbible.org/

All the Christianphobic people, i.e. militant atheists should read it as well so that they would stop using arguments based on ignorance....but my experience shows it probably won't occur.

Can you show me one argument from ignorance made by a "militant atheist" in this thread?
I'm not Christianophobic. I know well that Christians are just as different from each other as any other group of people. But I do have some pretty big problems with Christianity. Critizising a religion is not the same as critizising the people.
If you find it offensive that I critizise The Bible, I can tell you that I think The Bible is very offensive as well.

Science remains at a loss to definitively explain the Ice Age and the anomaly of the mysterious mega fauna extinctions across the face of the Earth about 12,000 to 10,000 Radio Carbon years ago.

Where have I heard this before... It reminds me of the Faux News-Bill O'Reilly "Science can't explain it, therefore goddidit!" argument, which is ridiculous. That is really just the god of the gaps.

Geologic evidence from that period indicates extraordinary global massive volcanism, gigantic tidal waves, seismic activity on a vast scale, and extreme temperature swings on the Earth over a geologically brief period of time. It is no coincidence that the Bible at Genesis 1:2 describes the Earth as flooded, desolate, and in darkness in the timeframe closely corresponding to these catastrophic events in the Earth's natural history. Clearly, these two mysteries are linked.

Please show me what evidence there is, I don't see any reason to blindly trust this site, and I have other things to do than jumping around the internet to find evidence for claims I didn't make.
I'm just wondering why it doesn't link to any scientific sources at all... I clicked the Geology Resources link, but I don't know if it's a joke linking to the latest seismic data. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest. Is it just so that we can see how angry God is at all the innocent people living around the globe, maybe?

Another thing is that the site just uses adjectives to describe what happens. Notice that it doesn't actually make any solid claims about the period of time it describes, except from being different from the current Earth in some ways (volcanic activity and the other things it mentioned).

And it still denies all the evidence for the vast majority of the history of life, which is much more than a few thousand years. "What you will learn on this website was BEFORE Darwin and was the common thought on the matter." - Without knowing what reason to think this narrow interpretation of The Bible, among the vast ocean of different interpretations (which might show something about the vagueness of the book?) was what MOST people thought before Darwin, I'll just say that it is the equivilant to what was thought BEFORE we learned that The Earth was a sphere, and not flat, or BEFORE we learned that diseases are caused by mikroorganisms and parasites, and not demons.

"Young life creationism" is almost as absurd as young Earth creationism. Accepting the evidence for Earth's 4.5 billion years old history doesn't make it the slightest less absurd to reject the evidence for the vast majority of the history of life.
And it raises another question: Why would a god make a universe run for 13.7 billion years before creating life in it?

[Arnstein]

I'm an atheist, and I probably will be as long as I live. I don't see any evidence for why I should believe in a God. I am open to suggestion though.

[atomic7732]

Creationists are idiots.

I believe though that some more or less some omnipotent being set the universe into motion (and maybe more), and more or less like a simulation, let it go without modifying it.

I fail. But that's what makes sense to me. I don't really think he/she/it meddles with anything... I don't really know at all. This argument is very fail-structured.

[Bla]

Creationists are idiots.

Agreed.

I believe though that some more or less some omnipotent being set the universe into motion (and maybe more), and more or less like a simulation, let it go without modifying it.

I fail. But that's what makes sense to me. I don't really think he/she/it meddles with anything... I don't really know at all. This argument is very fail-structured.

That's deism.
The biggest problem I see with that is just that it simply moves the question "where did the universe come from?" to "where did the being come from?"
I think any being capable of making a universe would be more complicated than, and thus harder to justify the existence of, than the universe.
This is why I like the multiverse idea, because it makes the "fine tuning argument" redundant.

Not that I think the fine tuning argument seems very convincing when life is in focus. The fact that any good god used physical laws like these instead of magic capable of giving us perfectly good and happy lives seems like a self-contradiction.
I think this video points it out well:
Is the Universe Fine Tuned for Life?
The vast majority of the volume of the universe is not good for life at all.

[Darvince]

I believe though that some more or less some omnipotent being set the universe into motion (and maybe more), and more or less like a simulation, let it go without modifying it.

*places 10^52 kg dot* *presses play* *watches forever*

[atomic7732]

See, Darv gets it!