Cliff_m85 said:
Completely off topic- Did a single event ever cause you to lose your faith? Did you ever believe in God? Was it that near death experience you mentioned earlier?Cliff_m85 said:
Poll: To atheists:What kind are you?
- Thread starter Craig FTW
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Honestly, I've never read more than 10 pages of the Bible. Nor do I really care to. I do understand that God, especially in the Old Testament was very vengeful and there was a sense of instilled fear in him.Cliff_m85 said:
I also think I might not have put "You don't have to be afraid" in the right context. What I meant by that is that many people are able to overcome fear of something because of their belief that God is watching over them. My grandmother was talking about things like that when she had heart surgery, and my grandfather when he was getting treatment for cancer. The Bible certainly calls for a great deal of fear and respect in the almighty, but I think many believers today see him in a different light, as a great protector.
I can agree with that. Hell, I've looked up some CRAZY bible passages that damn near everyone these days would be apalled at...Cakes said:
Exodus 21:7 - "If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as menservants do. (At some point in time you could sell your daughter into slavery??)
Exodus 35:2 - For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. (Overtime on Sunday? Sure, in Hell.)
Deuteronomy 21:20 - They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21:21 - Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. (Do what your parents say or else you'll get some rocks in the face!)
Corinthians 11:14 - "Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him." (Didn't someone famous have long hair...?)
The only problem with ignoring these passages is that even if they aren't applicable to today's society, they are still the written word of God, and you really can't pick and choose which parts of God's wisdom is right and wrong.
Evolution
1.- Evolution is a well established scientific fact, like it or not. There is no such thing as a non-evolutionary biology. As of 2009, the entire scientific corpus of this science is based on evolution. Other sciences, like Geology and astronomy, reinforce many of evolutionary-derived predictions. Not a single fault has been found in the theory, from a scientific point of view. It has been tweaked, of course, but the foundations remain as strong as ever. When one is found (which I doubt it will) then will have to revise our knowledge acquired in the last 200 years or so.
2.- Evolution does not tell us anything about the origin of life. It does explain how it specialises, evolves, changes, adapts and fills ecological niches. Speciation continues apace, and contrary to your belief, new information is indeed coded in DNA, every time a mutation (or coding error) takes place. It happens billions of times every DAY, a fraction of every time a strand of DNA gets replicated. Why else do you think we have now antibiotic-resistant bacteria, if not by natural selection?
3.- Evolution does not clash with Christianism. The Catholic church, quite a dogmatic organisation embraced evolution a long time ago, so I don't really understand your qualms. Darwin was a Christian and so are many biologists.
I think your opinion is not only biased, but wrong.y1fella said:
1.- Evolution is a well established scientific fact, like it or not. There is no such thing as a non-evolutionary biology. As of 2009, the entire scientific corpus of this science is based on evolution. Other sciences, like Geology and astronomy, reinforce many of evolutionary-derived predictions. Not a single fault has been found in the theory, from a scientific point of view. It has been tweaked, of course, but the foundations remain as strong as ever. When one is found (which I doubt it will) then will have to revise our knowledge acquired in the last 200 years or so.
2.- Evolution does not tell us anything about the origin of life. It does explain how it specialises, evolves, changes, adapts and fills ecological niches. Speciation continues apace, and contrary to your belief, new information is indeed coded in DNA, every time a mutation (or coding error) takes place. It happens billions of times every DAY, a fraction of every time a strand of DNA gets replicated. Why else do you think we have now antibiotic-resistant bacteria, if not by natural selection?
3.- Evolution does not clash with Christianism. The Catholic church, quite a dogmatic organisation embraced evolution a long time ago, so I don't really understand your qualms. Darwin was a Christian and so are many biologists.
People who argue against evolution should really just get better arguments. There are a few issues with the theory as there are with any theory and if you want to argue about it, get some good points that are beyond, 'Stop corrupting ma babehs!' Still, good luck saying that it should be thrown out entirely because that is ludacrous. Funny part is that while Christianity has issues with evolution, other major religions do not.
Honestly, if you want to argue creationism, just go back into how we even got DNA. Best discussion EVAHS xD
Reminds me of a funny article on NewScientist essentially telling you not to read anything with an agenda in it. Here's the problem, everything has an agenda. So the article was just telling you to read things that agree with what you think rather than challenge what you believe. Good job.
In short, think outside the box, challenge everything, stop holding your beliefs so up your ass that you can't change them even a little, and get arguments that don't make you look crazy.
Honestly, if you want to argue creationism, just go back into how we even got DNA. Best discussion EVAHS xD
Reminds me of a funny article on NewScientist essentially telling you not to read anything with an agenda in it. Here's the problem, everything has an agenda. So the article was just telling you to read things that agree with what you think rather than challenge what you believe. Good job.
In short, think outside the box, challenge everything, stop holding your beliefs so up your ass that you can't change them even a little, and get arguments that don't make you look crazy.
1. Nope.JUMBO PALACE said:
2. Yes.
3. Nope.
I used to be a theist, Christian specifically. I decided one day to read the whole book. Every page. No excuses. Surprisingly not many people did that (or surprisingly to me back then) so I thought I'd be one up on the game. Then I read the odd stuff, the stuff that didn't make sense. I questioned believers about it, I was biased....what would an Atheist know about the Bible? So I read it all and tried to find explanations, I read "Origin of the Species" and multiple scientific books that made me mark out literalisms. I read historic textbooks that made me mark out more. Blah blah blah, eventually found out it was all untrue....blah blah blah....so were multiple other religious texts....yadda yadda yadda....here I am.
Rationalist. That's about it, I'm not particularly vocal about my beliefs but I'm always willing to discuss them, I view it as more about my own learning than anything else.
Oh, I understand that it's false hope. Even false hope can be uplifting to those who don't have any hope at all, which like I said, is what I think one of the purposes of religion is. Religion gives many people hope, even if it's all false. As long as it makes them happy, I'm all for it. I'm not one to rain on one's parade with stuff like that.Cliff_m85 said:
Im the bash religion type. Not because "DEYS WRONG AND MUST BE SHOWN SO!" but cause they normally start by asking me why it is that I didn't convert like they did. As if it was I that was a moron for not seeing the comfort in the imaginary friend that a lot of grown ups have come to adore. I defend my position with force and vigor, but believe me, its never unprovoked.
False hope only works when the expected outcome comes true. Not only that, are you actually saying that some people are just so weak that they need to believe in a lie to get through life? I find that condescending and completely untrue.Ultra_Caboose said:
I have read the bible (cover to cover of a pretty recent edition, which is more than most christians have), yes. Otherwise I wouldn't criticise it the way I do.y1fella said:
And while it is full of such metaphors like you say it also has a HUGE number of non-metaphorical statements that there's only ONE WAY to interprate (namely litteraly). Statements like these:
As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)
If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.
(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.
(Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)
Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be removed from the city.
(Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB)
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.
(Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)
I have a LOT more of these in store if you want to read them. If you're going to try and give some sort of "metaphorical" explaination to such clear and straight-to-the-point quotes, im not going to have much other choice than declare you delusional.
Now I know that a lot of religious people don't listen to such passages from the bible (in fact, many so called "christians" don't even know that these passages are in there to begin with), but I think it's kind of hypocritical that they call themselves "christians" when they also clearly blashpeme against their God when they actively choose not to follow God's OWN rules written in the bible.
It doesn't matter if they are applicable today or not. Either you are a real christian or you're a heretical "picker and chooser". There really isn't any middleground here. And that's not because I say so, but because religion itself has made itself out to be clear cut and without gray areas. So don't blame me for not giving you any quarters here, blame your chosen religion...
You're asking a person whether he thinks x = 0 or x = 1, when in fact, he thinks that x could be 0 or 1. He believes, as I do, in the possibility of a god.Cliff_m85 said:
In fact, to me, Atheism is ignorance. To discount the possibility that a conscious entity is in control of our universe assumes that we will never be capable of building a computer that can simulate the detectable universe.
Ah, I didn't mean to sound condescending. I need to read my posts over before I actually post them.Cliff_m85 said:
I don't think that people are weak, not by any means. People are strong enough to get through life completely of their own free will and determination. I think what was going through my head was the story of Pandora's box. While all the evils of the world were set free, so was hope. In a world of vice and percieved evils, for some people hope can make all the difference. I meant to imply that hope helps those in need. Those who go through tough times can get a boost of morale from faith. It uplifts them, even if that faith isn't always true.
I feel like I'm still not quite saying it right...
Kubanator:
Well, I believe the world was created by a giant rainbow-coloured Unicorn in exactly 4 hours and 23 minutes, with the help of exactly 5,667 Yahtzee imps.
If you don't accept that, then you're an ignorant.
That, Sir, is your so-called logic, not mine.
Well, I believe the world was created by a giant rainbow-coloured Unicorn in exactly 4 hours and 23 minutes, with the help of exactly 5,667 Yahtzee imps.
If you don't accept that, then you're an ignorant.
That, Sir, is your so-called logic, not mine.
Just for that, I looked the passages up online. It actually only allows the stoning of people who didn't cry for help: in other words, those that had committed adultery instead of actually being raped.Cliff_m85 said:Deuteronomy 22: 22-29. Pick up whatever Bible you use. It's in there. I promise. Completely in context as well.
The shekels bit is, once again, an effort to curb inter-familial violence. In those days, the only man a woman could have sex with was her husband: a woman who slept with someone who wasn't her husband was considering indecent. Thus the law forcing the raper to marry the woman: it's more for the sake of the woman's reputation than it is a acceptance of rape.
Once again, misinterpretation for the win.