(April 27, 2016 at 10:30 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:

(April 27, 2016 at 10:06 pm)Godschild Wrote: Prayer can't be tested because no one can say how God will answer prayer, I have a question for you, how do you know there's no one listening, a little proof to go along with your affirmative statement would be nice? You all spout that there is no God all the time but in truth you do not know, you can't be sure, however I am sure the God of the Bible is real, you're living a chancy life.

GC

If "no one can say how God will answer prayer" means that the results of praying for someone are statistically indistinguishable from doing nothing, why do you think praying does anything at all?

Also... a billion Hindus are sure that Lord Krishna is real, and that you're living a chancy life. Do you really want to risk the wrath of the Lord of Time, the Destroyer of Worlds?

Just sayin'.

 Let's address the Hindus first, my God created those billion people, I'll take my chances with Him as your wife does.

God doesn't care about statistics, He cares about people. I know prayer works, I've seen it work, it is away of communicating with God and communication is important in a relationship.

GC

(April 27, 2016 at 10:53 pm)The_Empress Wrote:

(April 27, 2016 at 10:06 pm)Godschild Wrote:  Prayer can't be tested because no one can say how God will answer prayer, I have a question for you, how do you know there's no one listening, a little proof to go along with your affirmative statement would be nice? You all spout that there is no God all the time but in truth you do not know, you can't be sure, however I am sure the God of the Bible is real, you're living a chancy life.

GC

Meh. In my view, chancier would be living life according to dogma put down by uninformed, ignorant men thousands of years ago, and cherry-picked by uninformed, barbaric, and controlling men hundreds of years after that.

If the god of creation chooses to damn most of the atheists on this board, it's his loss. For the most part, we are a decent, empathetic, charitable, hard-working group of people. If we're not whom he wants in his kingdom, I'll pass on being included.

 Really you would pass on a life that is going to be so good it's not describable in any way man could understand. It seems to me the people who claim to be intelligent and want to learn would want to spend an eternity learning about the eternal God, eternal as in his being is so vast we can't ever learn everything about God. You would trade this opportunity to spend an eternity suffering in hell, no chance of learning anything new ever, I'm not saying hell is a fire and brimstone place, it's a place of regret and hate beyond belief.

Let me ask you this have you ever studied the Bible to find out what it truly holds and what it tells us about the eternal God of creation?

GC

(April 28, 2016 at 4:56 am)robvalue Wrote: What's all this beakering

I dislike people who hate others, I can say there is no one on this forum I hate, there are those who I do not wish to communicate with and it's either their hate or language.

GC

(April 29, 2016 at 12:56 am)Godschild Wrote:

(April 27, 2016 at 10:53 pm)The_Empress Wrote: Meh. In my view, chancier would be living life according to dogma put down by uninformed, ignorant men thousands of years ago, and cherry-picked by uninformed, barbaric, and controlling men hundreds of years after that.

If the god of creation chooses to damn most of the atheists on this board, it's his loss. For the most part, we are a decent, empathetic, charitable, hard-working group of people. If we're not whom he wants in his kingdom, I'll pass on being included.

 Really you would pass on a life that is going to be so good it's not describable in any way man could understand. It seems to me the people who claim to be intelligent and want to learn would want to spend an eternity learning about the eternal God, eternal as in his being is so vast we can't ever learn everything about God. You would trade this opportunity to spend an eternity suffering in hell, no chance of learning anything new ever, I'm not saying hell is a fire and brimstone place, it's a place of regret and hate beyond belief.

Let me ask you this have you ever studied the Bible to find out what it truly holds and what it tells us about the eternal God of creation?

GC

How do you not understand this, GC?

I. Do. Not. Believe. In. Your. God.

It is not an act; it is not willful. The belief simply isn't there.

How do you not understand that people who have any common sense can't will themselves to think your god is real just because you say so?? Just because you- some faceless internet character who comes from Indoctrination Central (which I know, because I'm from there too, which, for the eight-hundred-and-fortieth time, tells you how much I've studied the Bible); who spends every ounce of his time here either preaching or threatening- say so?

To me, and to most here, there is nothing to learn except badly-written, ancient fables, and a modicum of historical facts. I, for one, am not going to waste my relatively short existence on something lower in probability than winning a world-wide lottery...

... and to be honest, GC, if he exists, your god sends some pretty crappy ambassadors our way. How'd you get stuck with witnessing to the scum of the Earth?

Was the Virgin Mary really a Virgin and who checked?

Was Joseph ok with the virgin birth? Did anybody get his story on it?

What did Jesus do when he disappeared for 18 years in the bible?

If Jesus could turn water into wine and duplicate fish and bread why didn't he do it more often for other starving folks?

When Jesus came back to life did anybody other then he's followers see him? If so is that the origin of zombies?

(April 29, 2016 at 1:46 am)Goosebump Wrote: Was the Virgin Mary really a Virgin and who checked?

Was Joseph ok with the virgin birth? Did anybody get his story on it?

What did Jesus do when he disappeared for 18 years in the bible?

If Jesus could turn water into wine and duplicate fish and bread why didn't he do it more often for other starving folks?

When Jesus came back to life did anybody other then he's followers see him? If so is that the origin of zombies?

1) Mary wasn't a virgin, because the whole virgin birth thing rsulted in mistranslating the Aramaic word "almah" meaning young woman into the Greek word for virgin. Plus the prophesy in question had nothing to do with any messiah, instead predicting that a 8th century BCE invasion of Judea would be repulsed before a pregnant woman gave birth.

2) We don't know Joseph has no voice in the bible.

3) We don't know, no independent verification for Jesus. One of the reasons why his story is probably myhological.

4) Because he couldn't do either.

5) Jesus didn't come back to life. The earliest gospel recordings had no ressurection in them. Zombies come from Haitian voodoo IIRC.

(April 29, 2016 at 12:59 am)Godschild Wrote:

(April 28, 2016 at 4:56 am)robvalue Wrote: What's all this beakering

I dislike people who hate others

You must really dislike yourself then. A lot of hate in your posts.

Did we get any answer yet on why God needs to step in to fix his "perfect" plan so regularly? And why he needs our help to spot the problems?

Any religious person want to take a stab at that?

Do we have the power to thwart his plans, as long as no one notices it happening and so it doesn't get "reported" to him?

Why do we have a report system on here? One of the reasons is that admins aren't omnipresent, omniscient and infinitely wise*. If we were, why would need reports?

*Counselling is available for those now in shock.

I'm actually okay with the idea of prayer being unfalsifiable, as long as we all understand that means that prayer is in no way proof of anything.

(April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Godschild Wrote: Sonny I'm not a Catholic [...]

LOL

So what? Most religions and denominations have a confirmed track record of sex abuse of minors (and not exclusively minors). The only reason catholic church is such a transparent case, is because it's large, influential and has come to think itself invincible and therefore - became careless. But even though protestant communities may be better at hiding their dirty secrets and silencing the victims - there's still plenty evidence, that they're no better than catholics. And it's not surprising at all, since religious people are brainwashed to love their imaginary friends more than their own children and to automatically trust any c*nt, who associates himself with their particular brand of delusion.

http://www.methodist.org.uk/news-and-eve...-survivors

Quote:The Methodist Church in Britain has today published the report of an independent review of past safeguarding cases related to the Church from 1950 to 2014.[...]

The review identified 1,885 past cases, which included sexual, physical, emotional and domestic abuse as well as cases of neglect. In approximately one quarter of these cases, church ministers or lay employees were identified as the perpetrators or alleged perpetrators. In 61 of these cases there was contact with the police and there are 6 ongoing police investigations as a result.

http://reformation.com/CSA/allabuse.html

http://childfriendlyfaith.org/informatio...ristianity

I can provide some more links, if you're interested...

(April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Godschild Wrote: and if I were I would condemn those priest as I do now, it's my moral position.

That's nice - but what does that mean? Would you condemn the institutional cover-up of sex abuse as well - or only the few kiddy-fiddling priests that got caught? And what would you do about it? Would you stop paying tithes? Change religion/denomination? Write a strongly worded letter to Vatican?

And what do you do to make sure your own church (whatever it may be) is not protecting child abusers? Let me guess - you do nothing, you just "have faith", that your particular church's officials don't abuse their largely unrestricted access to young hearts, minds and rectums... But guess what - not so long ago, that's what catholics though too.

(April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Godschild Wrote: You have no proof how the universe started

LOL. Who's talking about how the universe started? Dumb religious people make claims that contradict all sorts of demonstrably true and scientifically proven facts we know about the universe - like the evolution. And yes - we have plenty of proof for that; so much in fact, that even the Kiddy-Fiddler General His Holiness The Pope doesn't have the balls to disagree.

(April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Godschild Wrote: and Christians have as much right to be in the political arena as atheist do.

Actually - they have a lot more right, if you go by the legislature in many countries and states, that forbid atheists from taking public offices...

(April 27, 2016 at 1:52 pm)Godschild Wrote: My dignity belongs to God to judge not you.

Yeah, well - your sheep-f*cking god calls you a sheep, as do his over-privillaged "servants". That's all I need to know about your dignity, buddy.