[Baseball_Fan]

Who disputed that Jesus ever walked the Earth? I personally didn't see anyone dispute it. I think it's fairly well accepted Jesus walked the Earth, but it's what he did that people dispute.

There were too many witnesses to what Jesus did for me to dispute it as fact. For example, it is fact that he was crucified and died. But he was alive after being tortured, nailed to a cross, and considered dead by everyone who was there. How is that possible?

There were many other events, such as when Jesus went to a town where there was not enough food to feed everyone. Jesus broke a loaf of bread, and then his apostles broke the loaf of bread, and that loaf was able to feed 5,000 people. I would assume it would be next to impossible to fool 5,000 people.

If we were in a court, and you were on the Jury, how many first hand witnesses would you require before deciding something is fact?

[Dude]

Two eight year old children are playing on a playground.  Child B throws a rock and inadvertently hits Child A.  The following dialogue takes place:

Child A (directed towards Child B):  You are a jerk.
Child B (directed towards Child A):  I know you are, but what am I.
Child A:  A jerk.
Child B:  I know you are, but what am I.
and so on, until infinity or one of them rips one.

This is the adult equivalent to the agnostic-Christian debate.  Child A has no proof other than an inadvertent act by Child B.  Child B has no proof other than the irritation generated from hearing Child A.  Until one can devise an experiment to prove the existence or non-existence of god, it demeans scientists as frivolous agitators to debate this.  My whole undergraduate college experience was crap like this.  Professor A argues that a fossil is 20,000 years old based upon carbon dating.  Thus, man must have been created before Christ and the bible is nonsense.  And then the ubiquitous counterargument from religous student B.

Proof that the Earth was spherical came from elegant geometrical calculations involving planetary observations by Copernicus.  Proof that germs are caused by microbes was an elegant study by Pasteur.  Heat as atomic vibrations instead of ether, quantum theory..  All of these are provable to some extent but not necessarily comprehensible by all.  One should devise the experiment or series of experiments before arguing the result.  Better yet, spend time trying to resolve some of the many problems on Earth before moving beyond.

[constant thinker]

Dude, I love your analogy. Thank you so much for it.

Hey that sounds funny. That's what I tried to state earlier, but it didn't catch on fully I guess. This debate if going to be impossible to end. I bet you that even if scientific experiments were done that could be repeated yielding similar results that either proved or disproved the existence of God some people would still refute the results. I think it's a never ending debate no matter what.

I hate these kinds of debates, because it's practically impossible to convince some people to be either pro- or anti-God. Then again scientific results can be skewed, twisted, and taken out of context to support someones views, even if the results disproved their view. I've seen an anti-evolution website that twisted a fruit fly experiment that clearly showed evolution. Also they tend to suck you in.

I now remember that when I took biology, my teacher had us write a paper on evolution for extra credit. He gave us no guidelines or anything. Some kids were unbelievably pro-evolution, while others were unbelievably procreationism, while still others like me took the middle road and provided both sides of the argument and alternatives to both evolution and creationism.

[Baseball_Fan]

Two eight year old children are playing on a playground.  Child B throws a rock and inadvertently hits Child A.  The following dialogue takes place:

Child A (directed towards Child B):  You are a jerk.
Child B (directed towards Child A):  I know you are, but what am I.
Child A:  A jerk.
Child B:  I know you are, but what am I.
and so on, until infinity or one of them rips one.

This is the adult equivalent to the agnostic-Christian debate.  Child A has no proof other than an inadvertent act by Child B.  Child B has no proof other than the irritation generated from hearing Child A.  Until one can devise an experiment to prove the existence or non-existence of god, it demeans scientists as frivolous agitators to debate this.  My whole undergraduate college experience was crap like this.  Professor A argues that a fossil is 20,000 years old based upon carbon dating.  Thus, man must have been created before Christ and the bible is nonsense.  And then the ubiquitous counterargument from religous student B.

Proof that the Earth was spherical came from elegant geometrical calculations involving planetary observations by Copernicus.  Proof that germs are caused by microbes was an elegant study by Pasteur.  Heat as atomic vibrations instead of ether, quantum theory..  All of these are provable to some extent but not necessarily comprehensible by all.  One should devise the experiment or series of experiments before arguing the result.  Better yet, spend time trying to resolve some of the many problems on Earth before moving beyond.

You're missing the point. If 5,000 people were all there and witnessed child B throw the rock, the truth would be accepted by all. When Jesus walked the earth, his acts were witnessed. Jesus did not do his acts in private, he did it for everyone to see.

The argument you seem to have is because you can not recreate what God does, then you don't believe God can do it. Don't believe that you're smarter than God.

[Will]

You're missing the point. If 5,000 people were all there and witnessed child B throw the rock, the truth would be accepted by all. When Jesus walked the earth, his acts were witnessed. Jesus did not do his acts in private, he did it for everyone to see.

The argument you seem to have is because you can not recreate what God does, then you don't believe God can do it. Don't believe that you're smarter than God.

I can't believe you can't even quote the Bible right- it says 5000 men, not including women and children!
Why did Jesus waste time by spliting everyone into lines of 50, or lines of 50 and 100?
How did the barley loaves multiply? Did Jesus just give everyone a crumb, or did he give a someone a slice then use his wand to make anothe slice grow back?
Reading the stories made me cringe, all the gospels say different things, they are written in such a childish vague way as if its fictional, and they were all written about 50 years after Jesus' death (old people normally don't remember things that well)! I really think its completely made up, how would anyone remember if it was 5000 men? Why did they only count the men up?

Reading passages from the Bible, Jesus sounds ruder and less forgiving than me! eg. Luke 9.59-62 and 10.10-12

And finally, that argument is perfectly OK, and I'll believe whatever I want to. If I want to believe that I'm smarter than 'God' I will believe that.

There were many other events, such as when Jesus went to a town where there was not enough food to feed everyone. Jesus broke a loaf of bread, and then his apostles broke the loaf of bread, and that loaf was able to feed 5,000 people. I would assume it would be next to impossible to fool 5,000 people.

If we were in a court, and you were on the Jury, how many first hand witnesses would you require before deciding something is fact?

About 10000000 honest, clever, first hand witnesses. Or other evidence such as a photopgraphic evidence, DNA proof, X-ray crystallography etc.

And yes, it would have been relatively hard (not impossible, thousands have already been fooled as they believe the world is 6000 years old) to fool 5000 people, but not to bribe them.

Also I apologise to the Christians who have normal more open views on 'God', for my rigid opinions; this guy has made me slightly anti-religious at the moment .

[constant thinker]

Ok the thing with The Bible is some seam more like analogies, localized events, or things taken out of context. By the way I'm a confirmed Catholic, but I've gotten into fights with ecclesiastics before over things. Usually it's the older people or the people that take the bible literally.

I take any stories from The Bible as analogies, localized events, or things taken out of context. I was told by a priest to take the Adam and Eve story with a grain of salt. He told me that it is more of an analogy than a historical account.

Also, what about Noah's Ark. How is it possible that he got all of those animals on an ark, yet alone build an ark as big as he needed it to hold the animals and the food. It's impossible by any means. To me it sounds like a recount of a great flood when a guy had a "vision" or realized that it was going to rain hard, then gathered up some of his animals and put them on a boat of some kind.

Remember also that none of those stories were written in actively spoken languages. They were written in old hebrew and aramaic I believe. These were then translated continuously over and over again. Even the translations were translated. Things could very well have been skewed, mixed up, or flat out changed. Also remember in that people back then used to use Pb quite a bit. How do we know that some of these guys that wrote the stories just weren't crazy?

I keep getting sucked into this debate..

[Borek]

I take any stories from The Bible as analogies, localized events, or things taken out of context. I was told by a priest to take the Adam and Eve story with a grain of salt. He told me that it is more of an analogy than a historical account.

Taking it literally leads nowhere: Genesis 4:17 (or 4:16) - where did the Kain's wife came from, if there were only three people on the Earth?

[FeLiXe]

constant thinker: I did read Angels and Demons, partly because you suggested it. It was a cool book. What I am wondering though is, if the column in CERN is really ionic or if it is just polar covalent ... (I am sorry I have a stupid sense of humor)

[Dim]

History has a tendency to repeat itself. Look at the wars, WWI, then WWII, then with the pompous white man stealing oil from the poor and stealing money from the rich. I’m getting a little carried away here. My point is that religion and entire civilizations can become a step farther than obsolete and are completely utterly destroyed. Like Ancient Egyptians, Greece, Rome along with their cultures and followings. So think twice before you see Christianity or any other religions are going to followed “Forever.” They will be talked about for years to come but will be seen as Greek and Roman mythology are seen. Jesus will be a myth.

These following examples will go to show that religion can and will be seen as a fallacy to some people.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.
Now what this basically proves is the fallacy of Jesus Christ on the cross. The cross with Jesus nailed on it is a graven image and is an idol that is worshipped by present day church goers of the catholic religion. They bow to it and serve it.

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six Yes, the number of the beast. Now you ask, what does this have to do with present day followings? Well the Pope himself. Stick with me here. You might read that and say “Blasphemy” and send me hate mail but hear me out. The pope goes by the Latin title of “Vicarious Filii Dei” Which literally means in place of the son of god. There is more meaning to the name than that. In roman numerals, each of the letters adds up to a number. “Vicarious” equals to 112, “Filii” equals to 53, and Dei equals to 501.

112+53+501=666.
..I will say no more

As mentioned-the bible was written thousands of years ago, morals were different. no real form of media was around,  and people were just plain stupid! They didn’t have microscopes back then, not aware of any germs nothing. Everything that they could not explain by knowledge is explained by a fictitious story. Views on sex were also different. Sex was evil and unholy, thus probably why priests had to devote their life to celibacy (Notice now that priests are taking out their sexual tension on little boys? Much worse than being with a woman). Now, everywhere you turn sex is everywhere, on the TV, in video games, hell sexual innuendo on billboards while you drive down the highway. You see my point here? Blindly following the text from different times can lead to chaotic things.

In short, the bible is a set of standards of morals woven into fables which is taken too serious to this day. Others see the bible as a power trip, Its rather easy to get people to follow you, first confuse them, then convince them you know the way out of their confused state--lets face it, to this day in age religions still hold a lot of power.

[Bakegaku]

In fact we can't tell if our world was just created yesterday and made to look like it has been around for longer. To use Poppers words: The theory that the world was just created at any specific date cannot be falsified by any scientific meanst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Thursdayism

[mechMA]

well I am an atheist, not believing in anything in the least.
This is my view point:

If god has put us here, on this earth, with the great undefined power he posses... why? it is an aged question that can neither be religiously answer ( can it?) or scientifically. If after this "life" we have two destinations, Heaven or Hell; our time hear is in a sense absolutely irrelevant to out immortal futures with "him" or the Devil? Why would he have placed us here, to test us? Why test us? Why not save some time and create us all in his image.

I have read, but now take it on as my own. If he loves us all, then why would he send us to hell for simply not believing in his existance?


Gods motives and logic confuses me.

[FeLiXe]

two answers would be:

1. A human brain is not able to understand what God is actually doing. And so religion has to be faith without logic because our logic doesn't apply. (but it's not an answer I like. a mathematician would say it's a non-constructive answer)

2. (kind of similar to 1 maybe) The truth is only approximated by religions. They have some things right and some things wrong. You can't take everything literally but there can still be a spiritual truth even though most religions have some contradictions.

[Glaudge]

actually, in my belif, the earth WAS created 15 gigayears ago, in the big bang, or something similar, but god(or mabye the devil, not so sure which) made it to look that way so that the anti christians and anti christ and atheists would have something valid to belive in to disprove christians, so that they wouldnt OPENLY be worshiping something or someone that will make them burn eternily, exept psychos, or else everyone with common sense would be christians, if the devil is as smart and clever as the bible says he is, thats EXACTLY how he would do it.
so they are both true, but still sorry if i bursted anyones bubble that is muslim, buddist, hindu, tribal religon, etc etc.
is my conclusion good? bad? totaly sucky? or einstine?