People build buildings, that isn’t at all confined to fundamentalism nor is it explained how fundamentalism has contributed to the buildings.

“Look at the pretty cathedral” isn’t exactly a stellar argument for fundamentalist value creation. Did they pray the stones into place?

No, they did not. They were built in the usual way.

Were they even built (and funded) to “glorify god”....? Not really.

They were built both by and for the same methods and purpose of any other non god themed building, then and now.

(July 22, 2019 at 6:17 pm)‘Belaqua Wrote:

(July 22, 2019 at 6:06 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: I told you anyone can create a small value by incurring a large cost.

OK, so that means that "fundamentalists" can create things of lasting value. Although perhaps only "small" value. 

So I think we've settled on the argument you're making. 

Now we'd have to find a way to calculate the costs vs. the benefits. Did the people of France benefit from Chartres Cathedral? How can we quantify this? Granted, maybe they should have spent the money in other ways. If they hadn't built the cathedral, where would the money and effort have gone? I don't think we can just assume that it would have gone to the kind of research you approve of. 

If the people of the time felt that it was a good thing to do, are we justified in saying they shouldn't have spent their time and their money that way? There are all kinds of unquantifiable benefits that are hard for us to understand. Particularly if we start from the premise that religious objects are always a waste of time, whether the people who made them thought so or not, it will be difficult to calculate cost/benefit numbers.

Are you truly so pathetic that you would resort to arguing fundamentalism that takes away a million to give back one as characterizable as being capable of giving?

(July 22, 2019 at 10:22 am)tackattack Wrote: Disclaimer, not a generalization I feel is true.

(July 20, 2019 at 10:58 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Why? It's like asking an alcoholic why he drinks.
From what I've noticed Creationists are people who are very spiteful, filled with hate, who are constantly cursing other people, and I guess one can get addicted to it. They vent their own life's failures by blaming others, by being angry at others and they get short bursts of pleasure by yelling at other people how they're going to hell and whatnot.

From what I've noticed Atheists are people who are very spiteful, filled with hate, who are constantly cursing other people, and I guess one can get addicted to it. They vent their own life's failures by blaming others, by being angry at others and they get short bursts of pleasure by yelling at other people how they're irrational and like sheep.

Come on, tacki, don't be dishonest. Are you telling me that when you look at prominent atheists like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher and Julia Sweeney you see them as angry? To me they seem level-headed or funny.

Creationists are those that constantly damn people to hell, want to kill people because they don't think they follow the Bible (like gays, adulterers, naughty kids, women in general), fail to hire people or discriminate based on belief.

Indeed, if you haven't noticed the crazier stuff people believe the angrier they get and see monsters everywhere. That's why the deeper into insanity you go like flat Earthers and reptilian aliens you find angrier, racist people, because they can't defend their stance with evidence or logic, but only anger. Something that we could call "Argument from anger". So they rather tell you what will happen to you if you don't embrace their worldview in order to scare you - since they don't have anything else.

(July 23, 2019 at 12:15 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Are you truly so pathetic that you would resort to arguing fundamentalism that takes away a million to give back one as characterizable as being capable of giving?

First of all, I still don't know what you mean by "fundamentalism." You're not using it in the standard way that I quoted before. 

Michelangelo, for example, was a passionate and sincere Christian all his life, but the influence of Ficino meant that he was far from a biblical literalist. He would not be considered fundamentalist by any standard Christian.

Is it possible to have communist fundamentalism? Capitalist fundamentalism? Or do you use the word specifically for religious things you don't like? Is it possible in your view to have a non-fundamentalist Christian whose contributions to society are of lasting value that are acceptable, according to your cost-benefit calculations? 

The "takes away a million to give back one" formulation is your own. You haven't offered any argument as to why that is a fair description of what has actually happened in history. 

So you seem to be asking me to take a lot of things on faith, and I'm not willing to do that. I'll want facts and evidence.

(July 22, 2019 at 2:20 am)Godscreated Wrote:

(July 20, 2019 at 5:42 am)android17ak47 Wrote: I've come to realize early on when I first turned away from faith 2 years ago, that the scriptures that both jews and christians use and believe are no more credible than any other older theology that we all have come to know as myths. I mean honestly, we don't take greek mythology and others seriously because the stories and claims in those myths have so much incorrect information about this earth and the cosmos that it's obvious no greek had been inspired by any all knowing god or gods. But we all, and this includes theists read those myths as literal claims, thus deeming those stories astronomically incorrect on so many levels.

What baffles me now, is that we have a world with the majority of believers who believe in the same god, that being Jehovah/Yahweh, but just like those other theological stories we all call myths, the claims within christian/jewish/muslim scriptures about the nature of this world and cosmos are just as incorrect as those we call myths. So my question is, how can an apologist have no problem calling other theologies myths but when facing the same fallacies that are litterally described in their bible, they pass these errors off as metaphores, yet still somehow say an all knowing true god was communicating with these jews and justify it's existence, but wouldn't dream of giving greek or hindu mythology a chance on the grounds that, the claims were "mysterious" metaphores not to be taken literally but the gods still exist and created everything. 

It is obvious to me that there was no more of a real god interacting with the jews , than there was with the greeks, hindus, ect...  and just like the reason we call other old theologies "myths", that being the things that come out of the mouths of these people who claimed a spiritual entity had spoken to them when noone else was around, this same reason why I say this god that the jews wrote about is as much of a delusion as the rest...

 Let's take this in some simple steps. First you have no proof in all those words, nor have you given any evidence that God does not exist. Second you seem to believe that God spoke to these men as you and I would speak to each other, I can tell you that is not the case with most of these writers. Third modern science has debunk most all religions, just not Christianity or the Jewish. Fourth some of the sciences you want to rely on as good science just are not and haven't been proven so, there exist great problems in them. Fifth Christians can say all the other religions are false the same as atheist using the same reasons, good science. Metaphors in the Bible are clear in understanding they are just that. The Bible is a literal book of truth, a book that shows the history of a chosen people and why the were chosen. Sixth and I'll stop here because I need you to explain to not just me but everyone here this little statement from the Bible. God told Abraham that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars in the heaven. Now how is it that a man of that time could have written such a statement when there are only around 6000 stars visible to the naked eye in the darkest of night skies. Don't try and argue there are more visible stars than that, it is established fact and do not try and say that it's metaphorical because that is a literal statement from the scriptures, so tell me how the writer could have ever know that the stars are innumerable?

GC

Most of that is uttrerly false and you are a total dick for lying to a noob. You must be proud.

(July 23, 2019 at 1:57 am)Abaddon_ire Wrote:

(July 22, 2019 at 2:20 am)Godscreated Wrote:  Let's take this in some simple steps. First you have no proof in all those words, nor have you given any evidence that God does not exist. Second you seem to believe that God spoke to these men as you and I would speak to each other, I can tell you that is not the case with most of these writers. Third modern science has debunk most all religions, just not Christianity or the Jewish. Fourth some of the sciences you want to rely on as good science just are not and haven't been proven so, there exist great problems in them. Fifth Christians can say all the other religions are false the same as atheist using the same reasons, good science. Metaphors in the Bible are clear in understanding they are just that. The Bible is a literal book of truth, a book that shows the history of a chosen people and why the were chosen. Sixth and I'll stop here because I need you to explain to not just me but everyone here this little statement from the Bible. God told Abraham that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars in the heaven. Now how is it that a man of that time could have written such a statement when there are only around 6000 stars visible to the naked eye in the darkest of night skies. Don't try and argue there are more visible stars than that, it is established fact and do not try and say that it's metaphorical because that is a literal statement from the scriptures, so tell me how the writer could have ever know that the stars are innumerable?

GC

Most of that is uttrerly false and you are a total dick for lying to a noob. You must be proud.

 None of it is false and you must be an idiot to believe so.

GC

---

(July 22, 2019 at 2:49 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(July 22, 2019 at 2:20 am)Godscreated Wrote:

(July 20, 2019 at 5:42 am)android17ak47 Wrote: Sixth and I'll stop here because I need you to explain to not just me but everyone here this little statement from the Bible. God told Abraham that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars in the heaven. Now how is it that a man of that time could have written such a statement when there are only around 6000 stars visible to the naked eye in the darkest of night skies. Don't try and argue there are more visible stars than that, it is established fact and do not try and say that it's metaphorical because that is a literal statement from the scriptures, so tell me how the writer could have ever know that the stars are innumerable?

The ancients saw lots of stars in the sky at night. The perception of innumerability of the stars was very evident to them. They didn't need to count them all literally to see it that way.

  You need to prove what you stated, the ancients knew more about the night sky than most people today including the number of stars. What was evident to them was the number of stars was limited to a small number especially compared to what was seen after the telescope came into play. Making things up doesn't help you in this argument. I have given you the truth and you try to put away the truth with illogical nonsense and out right false statements.
GC

(July 22, 2019 at 2:20 am)Godscreated Wrote: God told Abraham that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars in the heaven. Now how is it that a man of that time could have written such a statement when there are only around 6000 stars visible to the naked eye in the darkest of night skies. Don't try and argue there are more visible stars than that, it is established fact and do not try and say that it's metaphorical because that is a literal statement from the scriptures, so tell me how the writer could have ever know that the stars are innumerable?

Really GC, what is your obsession with Abraham and number 6000? In Genesis 17:5 Abraham  is called the "father of many nations" so are you saying all these nations together had 6000 people? Image of stars is not set on some exact number but a rhetorical move on sheer number. Even in Genesis 22:16 angel says to Abraham that "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore." - so are you also claiming there are 6000 sand grains on seashore?

And if you believe that Abraham existed then he is a direct ancestor of every human living today, as is the case with every person that lived prior to 700 years ago.

(July 23, 2019 at 2:15 am)Godscreated Wrote: You need to prove what you stated, the ancients knew more about the night sky than most people today including the number of stars. What was evident to them was the number of stars was limited to a small number especially compared to what was seen after the telescope came into play. Making things up doesn't help you in this argument. I have given you the truth and you try to put away the truth with illogical nonsense and out right false statements.
GC

Absent street lamps and pollution exclusive to modern life living and absent a full moon, how many stars in the night sky do you think they would've seen, GC? Just an estimate.

If you want to be conservative and say just a few hundreds, that's already a large enough number. And if you say 6000, then that's an even larger number. In both cases, large enough for the ancient people to have perceived the stars as innumerable.

(July 22, 2019 at 6:20 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: People build buildings, that isn’t at all confined to fundamentalism nor is it explained how fundamentalism has contributed to the buildings.

“Look at the pretty cathedral” isn’t exactly a stellar argument for fundamentalist value creation.  Did they pray the stones into place?

No, they did not.  They were built in the usual way.

Were they even built (and funded) to “glorify god”....?  Not really.

They were built both by and for the same methods and purpose of any other non god themed building, then and now.

In any case the cathedrals don't come from fundamentalism anyway. Name me one fundamentalist cathedral. The mainline denominations build soaring architectural wonders for the ages; the fundamentalists build pole barns with steeples.

The difference is in their eschatology. Evangelicals believe Jesus is returning Any Day Now, so why would they undertake mutigenerational projects like a giant cathedral? Relatively speaking, most mainline denominations believe they are supposed to build god's kingdom on earth, stone by stone, generation by generation, until the literal kingdom of god is ushered in due to the earth being sufficiently prepared to receive it.

The creation mythology of the God/s of Abraham in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions were not the first creation mythologies in our species history.