Hello

[jam070406]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

do your own research

You gonna answer my question?

 

[AtheistEnvoy]

Do you believe this to be natural behavior for humans or an extreme case?

natural behavior

the more we progress as a species the less commonplace it becomes, had you researched the topic you wouldn’t have needed a response on my part.

 

[jam070406]

natural behavior

the more we progress as a species the less commonplace it becomes, had you researched the topic you wouldn’t have needed a response on my part.

Well, I was asking you and expecting your opinion.

 

[jam070406]

natural behavior

the more we progress as a species the less commonplace it becomes, had you researched the topic you wouldn’t have needed a response on my part.

Yeah, that’s natural. Gimme a break. you’re really stretching now.

 

[AtheistEnvoy]

Yeah, that’s natural. Gimme a break. you’re really stretching now.

Are you just saying this as your opinion or have you actually looked over the topic at hand and it’s practice through history? You gave me 2 choices, extreme cases, or natural behavior. Out of the 2 choices natural behavior was by far the correct choice.

 

[guanophore]

Nope, just looking for some good Christians.

What would those look like? What is “good”? How is it defined? Should not a standard exist for this?

I have not finished catching up on the thread, so maybe you addressed this, but what interest do you have in “good Christians”? Did I not read that your parents are religious? Forgive me if I mixed up your post with someone elses.

Christians have no proofs.

I am an Atheist myself. I have been for about 30 years. I have engaged in many debates with Christians.

When all the talking is done, when all the preaching is done, when all the personal stories have been told.

You will not find one Christian in the 2 billion of them that will give you one shread of evidence that their god exist.

Not one.

That says alot about their religion.

I believe that there is “evidence” since we ourselves are part of it, but I do agree with you that there are no “proofs”. What we know about God is what He has chosen to reveal to us, and it does not emanate from our finite rational minds. God, being our Creator, is far above our minisucle ability of scientific “proof”.

One of my beefs with the evangelicals is that they are constantly trying to get us to “prove in scripture…”. This is not the function of Scripture, which is the documentation of God’s revelation of Himself to us. It cannot be used to satisfy scientific “proof”, which is really a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of the human race. The first humans had no sense of scientific “proof”, nor did mankind for millennia.

Based…on a book.

No, Annabea, you have been misled by the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic faith is not a “religion of the book”. The Catholic faith is based upon a person, not a book.

Right um okay. God created a church? Where was this church?

Yes. It was with Him, in Palestine.

Is there any scripture or evidence of its first teachings?

You can’t have it both ways, Annabea. If you are going to discount scripture as a reliable source, then you can’t ask that it be used to substantiate the point.

Both.

**
**Do you know how many religions are out there?!?!

No, but I do know that God chose to reveal Himself to humanity through the Jews.

Annabea:

What about faith in yourself?

This comes from the knowledge that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

And I’m sorry you think you will never feel true happiness.

That is not what he said. True happiness is to have our being in Him. We are created for Him, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.

And when you die and supposedly join Jesus will you pity all your non-believing friends and other people whom you have met burning down in hell? Will that give you peace?

What kind of question is that? It seems to project a sense of vengefulness…

Wait so you argument we cannot get complete happiness is because we cannot?

Complete happiness for humans subsists in becoming what we were created to be, which is unified with Him.

How do you know there is an afterlife, how do you Jesus Christ exists, how do you know it will make us completely happy. You believe all this on faith (no proof just believe) so, like this is your REASON to have faith, you need faith to have faith?

We know these things because we trust those persons to whom God revealed these truths. We believe it based upon the evidence, but it is not scientific evidence, it is what has been revealed by God.

[/QUOTE]

 

[jam070406]

Are you just saying this as your opinion or have you actually looked over the topic at hand and it’s practice through history? You gave me 2 choices, extreme cases, or natural behavior. Out of the 2 choices natural behavior was by far the correct choice.

How many woman do you know that have partaken in this “natural behavior”?

 

[jam070406]

the more we progress as a species the less commonplace it becomes, had you researched the topic you wouldn’t have needed a response on my part.

Actually, based on your link, it was the revelation of Jesus Christ, Christianity, that condemned the practice of infanticide. Not more progress as a species as you would like us to believe.

 

[guanophore]

(you need to believe without proof to believe without proof) It looks like you need faith to believe anything irrational even faith itself which is by definition irrational and opposed to rationality (rationality tries to justify things through logic (ordered and valid thinking) and evidence.

It is true that one needs faith. You seem to have placed yours in science. Christians place theirs in what has been revealed by God. Faith is not “irrational and opposed to rationality”. Faith is a natural function of the human person, and one of the avenues by which we can apprehend and know the Truth.

So you actually said NOTHING about why you believe, looks like you just believe because of wishful thinking on a happy afterlife. And that does not make what you believe true at all. Like Carl Sagan said:
“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is then to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.

And what “proof” do you have that this opinion of Carl Sagan is true? Or at least true for anyone but him? Who are you and Carl to decide thata person’s life has less quality if they believe in a delusion that makes them happy?

What does completely happy actually means? I don’t think such a thing even exists. How can you have fun if you are never bored? How can you enjoy pleasure if it is a default state?? If pleasure is default then it is not pleasure anymore is just default. Heaven got to be a very boring place when nothing happens, looks like. I would like and explanation please.

You want an “explanation” for heaven? How can something be explained to a person who does not believe it exists?

Then you go on and on saying baseless things you do not provide proof or reason to believe (and you probably cannot and if you can I want to heard and if it’s valid you may win a novel prize, but I doubt it).
And from you last sentence it can be seen really clear that you only believe in god so you can use him as a mental Prozac; and wishfully thinking you will live after dead in eternal happiness (whatever that means).

Does it offend you that some persons may use their faith as an antidepressant?

Thanks for sharing you reason to believe, however I’m not I need of mental Prozac, also I don’t want to suffer sexual dysfunction.

Do you think having faith in God produces sexual dysfunction?

Some of us do need Prozac, and are happy to find it in our faith. Is that a problem for you?

Right, because the great omnipotent god has limitations when it comes to answer an insignificant and weak human prayer. May be you need to ask and “open-ended”” question so you can, the next day, interpret the piece of bread with and oil stein on it like the almighty answer from GOD!

no, mauricio, the opposite is the case. People have limitations when it comes to relating with the Creator.

How did you get so cynical?

I’m not American so I’m not sure what they base their history on, but it is probably based on documents with confirmed authorship. That can be official documents (from governments) and other sources like newspapers and other historians and can be compared with each other to determinate if the history is real, or if some are biased. You should have done that in history classes on high school…
No, maruicio, American history is not based upon any “documents”, accurate though they may be. History is based upon what actually occurred, just as Christian history is. What you seem to be asserting is that we cannot know what actually occurred.

History is, by it’s nature, biased. You seem to think all of history must be contained in documents, or it was not “real”.
mauricio0;5272913:

Those kinds of documents are millions of times more reliable than the bible.

Please be so kind as to “prove” this statement to be true. Please demonstrate to us empirically that newpapers and other historical accounts are “millions of times more reliable than the bible.”.

So you place your faith(you believe with NOT A SINGLE EVIDENCE) on a book of old fables and myths wrote in the bronze age by primitive and savage pastors sheep herders telling the history about a god who ”is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

The evidence that is pursuasive to us, maruicio, may not be pursuasive to you, but that does not mean there is “no evidence”. We ourselves are evidence of the Church founded by Christ.

You semed to quote something here. It is against the forum rules to post quotations without citing sources.

Your erroneous perception of the Scriptures also does not negate them as a source of evidence for our faith.

The Catholic faith is not “bible based”.

 

[guanophore]

I already said what the bible is. The only thing that would make it important is if it was written by god(a very unpleasent one). But is hard to write something when you do not exist.

How is it that we are not allowed to place importance in the bible when the reason for it is different than yours?

So I don’t care about the bible and hate it how much importance it is given when there are so much better books on ethics and science; which give WAY better answers to our curiosity. Answers which are real answers not just God did it. Answers that are awe inspiring like the evolution and the cyclic universe, matter and energy. We (free thinkers) delight ourselves in the beauty of the universe, and how the science explanations fit perfectly.

Why are you here on CAF?

She simply asked was the bible a reliable source of info. to base your life and thinking on.

No, she didn’t. She emphatically asserted first that it was not, then asked for “proof” for our faith from the very text she discounted.

That was a reasonable question.

I agree.

The answer is no, it is not. It is a book full of myth and fairy tales. Written by men 2000 years ago that believed the earth was flat.

I disagree with you about the nature of the Holy Scriptures, however, I do agree that it is ridiculous to base one’s faith upon the book. The Catholic faith is based upon a Person. The writings reflect that faith, but are not the Source of it.

It is amazing that some people believe these men got it all right, but all of our science and technology is all wrong.

I don’t know any such people, but if I did, I suppose I would be as amazed as you are. Catholics don’t think that the people in the Bible “got it all right”. Catholics also dno not believe that science and technology are wrong.

The only eyewitness testimony you have to this is in the bible.

This is a falsehood.

You cannot use the bible to validate the bible.

Well, you can, but it is not as valuable a testimony as that of God, and the Church, which is where the authentication is based.

Outside of the bible you will not find one word written about Jesus Christ, the son of god, miracle worker.

It seems you have quite a bit of history yet to learn.

You will not find one word written about this man until no sooner that 20 years after his death.

Is that one of the criteria for authenticity?

The Not one word.

Do you believe that people do not exist unless something has been written about them within 20 years of their death?

No one has written anything about my grandmother in that amount of time, either. Does that mean she did not exist? Does it mean that, if she did exist, she is automatically not the person she claimed to be, or that I believed her to be?

the fact that alot of people believe gibberish does not make it any better or more true. I call this the McDonald’s argument

Why can’t it be true for them? What if believing in gibberish makes them happy and content? Who are you to criticize how people decide to be happy?

 

[guanophore]

Thank you for coming here. You are always invited. Or did you mean the atheists coming? Not sure.

I think she is grateful for the reinforcements. Clearly at least one of them is more hostile and cynical than she, and perhaps that seems like some sort of butress.

 

[antonabe]

Hello. I am an atheist. Now before you start spitting on my shoes I would like to know a little about what you believe? Belief usually varies from person to person that is why I did not post this in the admin/mod answer question thingy. I would like to know what you think about religion, how you think it is effecting the world, and why you believe what you do.
Thanks!
~Annabea

edit: sorry a little grammar check

I think the first step is to find out whether you believe in a Soul.Do you believe that there is something in you that is not material that gives you freedom in your Mental processes and that you are governed by electrical impulses from your brain that drives you to do various fucntions as in Animals.We Catholics believe in a soul that is not material and that the sould will not die after death and will have eternal life and our faith is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ which have been testified by several of his Apostles and Disciples

 

[AtheistEnvoy]

Actually, based on your link, it was the revelation of Jesus Christ, Christianity, that condemned the practice of infanticide. Not more progress as a species as you would like us to believe.

Christianity is part of our progress as a species, thanks for playing.

 

[aileron]

I stated that the Church killed nobody, which it hasn’t.

See partial list at end.

You thought that was funny, as if I was wrong in my statement .

Actually, I thought it was frightening that a well educated Roman Catholic would not know or be in denial about this part of Church history. I used the word “funny” more in the sense of “I don’t get this; how can it be?”

So either you can provide the documents that endorse or condone such behavior or you can admit that you were merely being condescending, and that in actuality, people who commited any atrocities were not in line with Jesus or the Church?

So the rules are: It is not enough that unjust killings ordered by RCC leaders are recorded in history, but the events also have to be documented with specific endorsements by the church? Whatever - we can work with your limitations for now.

1209 – Innocent III orders the Albigensian Crusade using armies of French noblemen offered land and booty, and a promise of heaven to any killed crusaders. Unlike the six bloody Crusades in the Holy Land ordered by various Popes, this Crusade was in Southern France. The Cathars were at peace, and their doom was not accepting Church dogmas and growing in numbers. Between the two crusades against them and the brutal inquisition that followed including burning remaining Cathars alive until the 14th century, somewhere between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people were massacred.

1452 & 1455 – Nicholas V’s Papal Bulls Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex sanctifies Spain and Portugal to seize land held by Northern African Muslims, pagans, and other “enemies of Christ” anywhere in the world. It also gives permission to enslave the people in the seized lands in perpetuity. These Bulls were elaborated on and expanded with more Bulls, such as the following:

1493 – Pope Alexander VI issues Papal Bull Inter Caetera demanding that the “barbarous nations” of South America be overthrown and brought to the faith.

 

[mrhenrik]

And what “proof” do you have that this opinion of Carl Sagan is true? Or at least true for anyone but him? Who are you and Carl to decide thata person’s life has less quality if they believe in a delusion that makes them happy?

Whether religion makes people happy or not is not related to whether it’s true or not.

You want an “explanation” for heaven? How can something be explained to a person who does not believe it exists?

I guess you can start by telling us why you believe it exists.

Does it offend you that some persons may use their faith as an antidepressant?

No, this is perfectly understandable, but it doesn’t provide any more weight to the arguement of the truth in faith.

 

[James924]

My beliefs: Read the Catholic “Profession of Faith.”

Why do I believe there is a God?

1. First causality. Something cannot come from nothing. It is now a proven fact that the universe had a beginning. The most accepted theory being the Big Bang Theory. You can delve into first causality yourself, but let me just state that very simple fact again…something cannot come from nothing…everything needs a cause…if there was a thing that caused something…but did not, itself, require a cause…that thing could only be a transcendent entity. Congratulations…you’ve just found the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
2. The cell. Look at a strand of DNA…then look at the activities within a cell. The little things moving around, taking the blue prints (messenger Rna) from DNA strands…grabbing up the corresponding amino acids and making sure that they are in the right order and shape and bending them into Proteins to make the various parts of a cell…those little things that do that are NOT alive. They are inanimate peices of proteins themselves. Somehow those inanimate objects know how to read the instructions from DNA strands and follow through on them. Why does this information exist? What is information and why are these inanimate pieces of matter able to act in accordance with it?
3. The impossibility of first life being created by accident. There is a certain point, most mathematicians would agree, that something is so unlikely it can properly be called impossible. A cell is made up of proteins… Proteins need to be made (by something!) from amino acids…a specific combination for each individual protein. There are roughly 20 amino acids (if I remember correctly) and somehow those amino acids would have needed to actually fall in the right order and been accidentally bent into the right shape to form a protein…and thats just ONE protein! Mathematicians have actually mapped this out and the odds of this happening even once were so slim, that I couldn’t write the number on this post. Lets just say lots and lots of zeros. Then of course you’d need the right cell adhesion molecules int he right places to bend and keep the protein in the right shape (one cell adhesion molecule, laminin is ironically in the shape of the Christian Cross.) This would have to happen several times for a cell to come into existance…and it would require DNA to instruct the building of these proteins. And DNA doesnt exist without life in the first place…right?

In the past decades several scientists, particularly in the field of micro-biology, have concluded that design is the only logical explanation. Many of them got together a while back and put a presentation together called “Unlocking the Mysteries of Life.” You can get a cheap copy on amazon.com and if you’re genuinely open-minded, you’ll watch it when you have a chance.

4a. Other explanations for life have huge problems. The Darwinian theory of Macro-Evolution simply doesn’t hold water. Darwin, in his day, didn’t have a lot of fossil record evidence to look at, and also it was believed that cells were simple globs of goo (now we know they are more complicated than our country’s biggest metropolis!). Darwin once stated that, in the future if anyone found a living thing or body part (paraphrasing) that could not be explained by natural selection then his theory would fall apart…
Enter the bacterial flagellum (and other cell appendages like it). The idea of natural selection is that, in the case of a cell appendage, slight variations would occur, on the molecular scale, and if they did not contribute anything useful, they would be scrapped by later generations. The problem with the bacterial flagellum (a motor on the back of a cell that moves at a higher rate of RPM than some muscle car engines) is that none of the parts contribute ANYTHING to the cell until the last one on the tip is there. In fact, if ONE part was missing, the flagellum wold be useless. So that means that when the base of the structure was created by the first “slight variation” it would have been immediately scrapped because it didnt do anything, it would only be extra weight, slowing the cell down. So there had to be some KNOWLEDGE within the cell building process that assured the process at work that that at step 10 or so the whole collection of proteins would start working. This concept is known in micro-biology as “Irreducible Complexity.”

4b. As I stated, Darwin didn’t have a lot of fossil record to play with so he had to say “future discoveries will prove my theory.” The problem is that, for macro-evolution to have taken place from one species to another…the fossil record would show about 50,000 examples of those slight variations between the two. Let me make this clear…I’m not talking 50,000 fossils in the world total, I’m talking about you name the species that you think evolved into another species (Macro-evolution) and there needs to be evidence of 50,000 slight variations between THOSE TWO ALONE. This type of evidence simply does not exist, and if it did…it would be plentiful and easy to see by now.

4c. The “Cambrian explosion.” There is a very sudden explosion of different species that appear all at the same time in the Cambrian Era. This has yet to be explained and is impossible if you ascribe to Darwinian Macro-evolutionary theory.

Looks like this is too long…continued in next post.>>>

 

[James924]

Continued…

Now, don’t get me wrong, you still have that 1 chance I spoke of in point #3. Keep in mind that point #3 can only be spoken about after you explain the fine tuned parameters of the universe. If the force of gravity in the universe, or the rate of expansion, or the proximity of this galaxy to others or of our planet to other planets or bodies was off by a minuscule fraction, there could be no life of any sort.

Essentially this was not “proof of God” as you still theoretically have that one-in-gazillion, chance from point #3 and the previous paragraph combined. Rather, this was whats called a “reductio ad absurdum.” The position of non-theism is reduced to absurdity. You’d be a fool to wager a penny on it. Oh that reminds me:

Reason #5. Pascal’s wager. (Just food for thought, look it up.)

Now that I’ve established why even bonzo the chimpanzee would choose to side with intelligent design…how do I know that that entity is the God of Abraham and Jacob and Isaac? After all there’s “thousands” of religions! That’s another fun one to tackle and I’ll do so in my next post.

(Be advised, I’m simply stating my own personal reasons for my beliefs, which is what you asked for. Please do not take offense at anything I say.)

(also, for clarification, certain types of evolution such as micro-evolution or evolutions that occur WITHIN a species are scientific fact, acknowledged by the church. We aren’t biblical fundamentalist protestants who think the earth is only 5,000 years old. The above arguments were only against Macro-evolution.)

In my next post I’ll get to choosing Christianity out of the world’s religions. I’ll also address the issue of “the church did mean stuff!!” Then I’ll follow it up with a post that supplements some of what I said above with more information. Bare with me as I’m deployed in the middle-east right now and not only do I not have access to my home library, but I don’t have an abundance of time either!

Thanks for your interest in my reasons for my faith and God Bless you.

 

[James924]

I should point out that aileron’s claim of 200,000 to 1,000,000 people massacred is a lie. Secular historians from several universities got together in the past several years and concluded that the number people killed in the Catholic inquisitions was between 2,500 and 5,000. still not a good thing (we’re supposed to love the sinner, hate the sin) but nowhere near the big lie of 1,000,000. I laughed when I read aileron’s post. Its full of some pretty common historical revisionism (fancy word for lies.) I’ll see if I can address some of those more specifically in one of my next posts.

For now know that the numbers of 200,000 to 1,000,000 come from “historians” like Rummel and Hellen Ellerbe. These “historians” were about as fair and balanced as today’s american mainstream media! Rummel, for example, also claimed that 250,000 were killed in the spanish inquisition alone. We now know the number was closer to two-thousand (2,000).

 

[James924]

No, and I do not recommend you saying that stuff( when talking to atheists) because it is offensive and annoying to people; that have struggled researching for truth and have came to the conclusion that there is no valid reason to believe in god, and that the theistic world view is very unlikely. Also it is an ad hominem.

Mauricio, the claims that the church did bad stuff are ad hominems. If Agnostics use ad hominems against religion its ok to use them in reverse (Hitler’s Genocides were in fact motivated by his belief in Darwinian Eugenic theory, Mao was atheist, Stalin was atheist, Kim Jong Il is an atheist)

Also, an argumentum ad hominum is not intrinsically insufficient. They are only insufficient if they are the ONLY part of your argument. There is nothing wrong with providing an argumentum ad hominum or even an argumentum ad verecundiam as long as it’s a supplement to a more appropriate argument focusing on syllogistic logic that enforces the TRUTH value of your premise.

 

[mrhenrik]

Mauricio, the claims that the church did bad stuff are ad hominems. If Agnostics use ad hominems against religion its ok to use them in reverse (Hitler’s Genocides were in fact motivated by his belief in Darwinian Eugenic theory, Mao was atheist, Stalin was atheist, Kim Jong Il is an atheist)

An action done by an atheist, and an action done by atheism, are two completely different things and should not be mixed up. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god. End of story. It is nothing, it’s just a lack of something.