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Well, I get plenty of joy without the invisible friend, but I appreciate the sentiment.
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c659smith
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I guess I answered that last question as you were asking it. The last post is my answer to that.
I do love nature and am a naturre enthusasist.
A laugh I once had was watching the fight over global warming Right or wrong about global warming if it’s for cleaning up the planet I’m for it I do not care about the reason or how we get there .
Like Nike says Let’s just do it !!
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lkddav
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Hello
I never posted “blah atheistic trash blah”. Are drinking more than i am or what???
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lkddav
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Hello PsycheI realize that Genesis isn’t to be taken literally. I knew most of this by the way, I just wanted to see if you or anyone else had anything else to add. There were a few things I hadn’t caught on to which you mentioned, so thanks for replying so quickly. The main thing was the 24 hour day. I just didn’t know how to explain it without reverting to, well this is what we believe and not having anything to back it up… That tends to be my main problem.
Okay, this is one of my main problems with christianity. In college, a professor(methodist minister) said that the methodist church considered the account of genesis as myth.
If so, their was no fall of man, no reason for jesus to return to forgive us of this fall from sin. So, no fall of man, no reason for jesus.
Poof, christianity goes up in smoke.
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lkddav
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lkddav
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Hi 659
Not really just atheist. Women who want control over their own body. People who could be helped by stem cell research. Etc…
I can’t buy booze on sunday because god doesn’t like it. What if they past a law that no one could shop on saturday because Thor didn’t like it. How would you feel about that? Would that be scary??
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lkddav
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This is not absurd. Jesus plainly says in the four gospels, if you believe your prayers would be answered. He didn’t say if god was in the mood, or work in mysterious ways, or we don’t understand the will of god.
He plainly said nine times in the gospels that if a believer prayed, his or her prayers would be answered.
So, either you are lying or jesus was lying. This is not an idiotic reguest. Was your jesus lying?
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geekborj
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However, the “happiness” that Christians declare are much more deeper than the happiness that we just “feel” – not just physical but whole being (however one believe a person is “composed” of). We believe that the happiness promised by our God is much greater than the happiest feeling one mortal can experience in this life. It’s in fact quite ironic because, temporal “happiness” is not important for Christians.
Indeed, happiness is defined by a person – only that person has the authority to experience that. However, the happiness promised to the Christians are beyond the greatest that a person can imagine.
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oneGODoneCHURCH
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It really simple to answer that. God answers all prayer sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no.
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phooney
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@psyche23
Your comment that this world doesn’t really matter in the long term, I find… horrible. I’m sorry if you think that I’m being harsh, I don’t know how to soften my sentiments any more than that. It matters a whole lot to me right now, and will matter to my children, and will matter to people after I am gone. As this life is the only one we have evidence for, the importance of this world, which has and will continue to outlast many generations of us, is one that certainly may be reasonably classified as ‘long term’.
No, not at all, it’s a reasonably free forum afterall!
Pascal’s wager has been brought up many times in all three of these threads, and has been shown to be invalid. We are all taking the same risk with regards to our belief or lack of belief. You could just as easily go to some version of hell specifically because of your belief, whereas I might go to some version of heaven because of my lack of belief. Without evidence of which god or gods is/are the correct one(s) we just can’t say. Pascal’s wager also effectively places a value of 0 for time spent in this life when making his safe bet, whereas if in fact there is no god, then you have lost something absolutely priceless, which is part of the time of the only life you get in the worship of a figment of your imagination.
An omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent deity is omniresponsible.
But plenty of people have died for mutually exclusive beliefs, therefore it has nothing to do with the truth or otherwise of the claim, it just shows that they believe. Also, like Jesus, I haven’t come across satisfactory evidence that the Apostles existed either. As I mentioned before, I think Paul mentioned that he met Peter, but this is a topic I need to do more research on.
Your comment that this world doesn’t really matter in the long term, I find… horrible. I’m sorry if you think that I’m being harsh, I don’t know how to soften my sentiments any more than that. It matters a whole lot to me right now, and will matter to my children, and will matter to people after I am gone. As this life is the only one we have evidence for, the importance of this world, which has and will continue to outlast many generations of us, is one that certainly may be reasonably classified as ‘long term’.
I think the word used for ‘day’ was ‘yot’ (somebody correct me if I’m wrong) and I’ve heard that when it is used in conjunction with mentioning sunrises or settings, it always means a normal day as we use the word. I can’t remember where or when I heard this, so I could be wrong.
That is a very interesting article/project, thanks for the link. Mind you, I don’t see how this backs up the church/biblical claims? That San bushman didn’t just appear out of the clay, he had parents, grandparents, likely had siblings, etc. All the research claims to do by trying to trace the ‘first’ human is to find approximately when and where the most recent common ancestor of all humans is likely to have lived. Just the most recent, that’s all. Technically there would be millions of ‘ancestors of all human kind’, like that San bushman’s Mum or Dad for example. Common descent is all part of evolution.
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phooney
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@c659smith
The shroud of turin wikipedia page says “Pope John Paul II stated in 1998, “Since we’re not dealing with a matter of faith, the church can’t pronounce itself on such questions. It entrusts to scientists the tasks of continuing to investigate, to reach adequate answers to the questions connected to this shroud.””
This is repeated on the same website you claim to have read: shroudstory.com/faq/Shroud-Turin-wiki27.htm
Are you aware of an official statement on the shroud from the Catholic Church saying that it is authentic or a forgery?
Just to further illustrate my point, and also show that conversions happen both ways for those that are fans of Lee Strobel etc(I read his book “The case for faith” last year, and forgive me, but I thought the book would be a bit bigger!) here is a quote from former preacher Dan Barker.
In “Losing Faith in Faith” he explained how Christians would try to explain if the Bible said “This square is a circle”:
"It could mean a circle of squares, or a square of circles. Or in the original language the word ‘square’ was used to refer to any geometric object. Or a circle is functioning in place of a square temporarily. Or yesterday there was a square here, today it’s a circle. Or, the circle is ‘square’ meaning odd or corny - it’s an ellipse, yeah, that’s what it is. Or the word ‘circle’ is used in a general sense of ‘circling around’, which a square can do. Or the circle was cut from a square - the word ‘is’ means ‘is from.’ Or the word ‘square’ doesn’t really belong in this sentence - it goes chronologically with the last sentence. Or the term ‘square’ is symbolic, like the ‘4 corners of the Earth.’ Or the word ‘circle’ is used loosely like ‘a circle of friends.’ A square circle is an old fashioned group of friends. Or, it’s a deep mystery that only God comprehends and we will understand it all someday in heaven.”
Again you haven’t responded to much that I posted unfortunately. Mind you, neither has anybody else, so I can’t really blame you too much!
The only thing I could do for this is show the lack of any official position statement. I can’t find any official position statement. Searching through the catechism www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm for ‘turin’ produced 0 results.
The shroud of turin wikipedia page says “Pope John Paul II stated in 1998, “Since we’re not dealing with a matter of faith, the church can’t pronounce itself on such questions. It entrusts to scientists the tasks of continuing to investigate, to reach adequate answers to the questions connected to this shroud.””
This is repeated on the same website you claim to have read: shroudstory.com/faq/Shroud-Turin-wiki27.htm
Are you aware of an official statement on the shroud from the Catholic Church saying that it is authentic or a forgery?
I noted there were contentious issues, pointed out there was no consensus. You, on the other hand, seem to be trying to make an argument that this IS the burial cloth of Jesus, which isn’t supported even by the sources you yourself cite (or rather when I cite your sources for you).
It looks more like you think god can be proven by ctrl-c, ctrl-v.
If taken literally, the bible blatantly does not stand up to scientific evidence. If you are allowed to claim metaphor, poetry, allegory, translation issues, ambiguity, symbolism or faith, as well as being able to pick and choose from over 50 different versions of the story to suit yourself (according to the website Socrates4Jesus used previously to give me the quote from Ezekiel) then ANY story from the wizard of oz to clifford the big red dog is historically and scientifically accurate. As I mentioned before, the bible doesn’t tell us what to take literally, and what to not take literally, it didn’t come colour coded for such purposes. As a whole it isn’t a history book either, being of largely anonymous authorship, who normally don’t mention how they came across the information along with anonymous editors and redacters disqualifies it as a history book, regardless of whether it was originally based on things that actually happened or not, we can’t rely on it.
Just to further illustrate my point, and also show that conversions happen both ways for those that are fans of Lee Strobel etc(I read his book “The case for faith” last year, and forgive me, but I thought the book would be a bit bigger!) here is a quote from former preacher Dan Barker.
In “Losing Faith in Faith” he explained how Christians would try to explain if the Bible said “This square is a circle”:
"It could mean a circle of squares, or a square of circles. Or in the original language the word ‘square’ was used to refer to any geometric object. Or a circle is functioning in place of a square temporarily. Or yesterday there was a square here, today it’s a circle. Or, the circle is ‘square’ meaning odd or corny - it’s an ellipse, yeah, that’s what it is. Or the word ‘circle’ is used in a general sense of ‘circling around’, which a square can do. Or the circle was cut from a square - the word ‘is’ means ‘is from.’ Or the word ‘square’ doesn’t really belong in this sentence - it goes chronologically with the last sentence. Or the term ‘square’ is symbolic, like the ‘4 corners of the Earth.’ Or the word ‘circle’ is used loosely like ‘a circle of friends.’ A square circle is an old fashioned group of friends. Or, it’s a deep mystery that only God comprehends and we will understand it all someday in heaven.”
Ok.
eh?
Well, as I’ve shown, even if I didn’t have any sources of my own, the sources you use don’t even try to make the same case as you, as far as the shroud is concerned. You claim your independent thought is backed up by science, yet you spout such things as “why are there still apes??” and you seem to think that a scientific theory is the same as a layman’s theory, as if scientific theories might some day become scientific fact. Scientific theories are above facts, because they tie MANY facts together and make testable predictions about reality.
Well, there was supposed to be a solar eclipse when Jesus was crucified, wasn’t there? I’m sure somebody mentioned this to me in one of the other threads. The dating you have given for the birthdate of Jesus doesn’t match up with the possible solar eclipses if he died when he was 33. That’s all I was saying.
What could the star of bethlehem possibly have to do with a solar eclipse at the death of Jesus?
But…there were no solar eclipses in October of 1917. Is this the first time you’ve heard of solar eclipses?
Again you haven’t responded to much that I posted unfortunately. Mind you, neither has anybody else, so I can’t really blame you too much!
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phooney
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@Pax
Thanks for your contributions, they have been reasonably well thought out. I’m not planning on delving into everything you’ve said at the moment, just due to the fact that there are so many people to respond to. However, one thing I did want to ask you about was:
Philosphy is a great way of ‘thinking about thinking’ and it has been an extremely valueable tool to help us refine the questions we ask. However, I don’t see it as a method for gathering belief-worthy evidence usually, but a fantastic way to refine our hypotheses for scientific testing.
“The components of His creation can be studied and they point to a creator.”
Obviously we disagree on that. Thanks for your time.
Thanks for your contributions, they have been reasonably well thought out. I’m not planning on delving into everything you’ve said at the moment, just due to the fact that there are so many people to respond to. However, one thing I did want to ask you about was:
For me, I’ve always thought the realm of science was in anything we could observe through any of our senses, or via the instruments that we can create. This seems to match up with what you think the jurisdiction of science is. However, I would think it would then follow that if God had an effect or presence in our universe that we had any way of observing, it would be in the realm of science. Your argument seems to rest on vague ‘other’ senses for evidence. It would surely be a contradiction of free will if only a quarter of the modern population had this sense, wouldn’t it? If one has to believe first in order to be privy to this evidence, it would contradict the standards of evidence we place in every other area of our life, and if one has to believe in a deity before there is evidence of that deity, why start with Yahweh? Why not go through all possible gods in alphabetial order? I was wondering if you could describe what these other sense(s) is/are?
Philosphy is a great way of ‘thinking about thinking’ and it has been an extremely valueable tool to help us refine the questions we ask. However, I don’t see it as a method for gathering belief-worthy evidence usually, but a fantastic way to refine our hypotheses for scientific testing.
“The components of His creation can be studied and they point to a creator.”
Obviously we disagree on that.
Thanks for your time.- Status