I was in kindergarten in 1969-70. I remember the scissors. The left-handed scissors had green handles, rounded ends, and said "lefty" on them. The right handed scissors had sharp points.

My parents were contacted by my teacher to ask permission to change my hand preference. Parents said "no." My mother is right handed because she was changed.

If being left handed is so bad, why is there a Johny Cash song entitled The Devil's Right Hand?

I'm not sure if either of my nieces are left handed or not. Sometimes they like doing things with their left hand, and my parents encourage them to be right handed, but they don't seem to have difficulty using their right hands.

So, anyway, back on topic...

The main problem with Christianity is that Christians are in charge of it.

If we're going back on topic, I did make an earlier post about the core of christianity that I had problems with, but no one responded to it.

Quote:Among other things, of which there are many, I have a problem with what is basically the core of the christian belief. Different authors give us a story of Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection, and get many details different. From what happened to Joseph and Mary before he was born, to when the last supper was held, when he died, and who was at the tomb. Plus there was supposedly an eclipse, and dead saints rising from their graves, that wasn't mentioned anywhere but in the bible. I've even read that there wasn't even a census that supposedly caused Joseph and Mary to need to move from one town to the other.

Now about Jesus in particular. Supposedly he came to spread the word and save everyone, but Yahweh decided to just send one person down, once in human history, to spend a few years preaching in a backwater part of the world, then dying. Then supposedly being put in a tomb, which was odd because they didn't usually put criminals in tombs anyway. If Jesus was real, and was crucified, he was most likely thrown into a pit with the other criminals and buried there.

So this is supposed to be a sacrifice. If he's part of the trinity, what has God lost from doing that? How is he weaker now than he was before. Jesus was supposedly born, spent thirty years on earth, had an admittedly horrible, torturous week, then went up to heaven to rule the cosmos. That doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice. If I decide to cut off my finger, then have it reattached, what have I really lost in the long run?

Lastly, we get to what we're being "saved" from. If I make a bonfire, gather a crowd together, and tell them to be my slaves or burn to death, I'm not saving them. I'm blackmailing them. This is the biggest problem when you tell people your deity is the originator of all things, and is all powerful. That means he's ultimately responsible for everything. With great power comes great responsibility, and he's the greatest of all.

It's not like he's all knowing or all powerful in the old testament. You have people convincing him to change his mind, or wrestling him to a stalemate, or even beating him with iron chariots. I'm also certain genesis was added after other books, so he wasn't even originally the creator of the universe according to the oldest stories. He was a lesser war god of the canaanite or babylonian pantheon, hence why he was in charge of wars. He was basically the ancient isrealite version of Ares. He spoke to people in person and had an actual personal relationship with them, according to the stories. Not like now, where he's invisible and his very existence is up for debate.

(November 24, 2013 at 12:59 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote:

(November 24, 2013 at 12:16 pm)Zazzy Wrote: Amen, brothers. I am also a lefty, and I am fucking TIRED of the pen at the checkout desk being attached on the right side. I'm tired of right-handed desks. I'm tired of right-handed scissors. Even time on clocks is right-handed, for chrissakes.

It's clearly time for bloody, violent revolt.

Not only that, but DRY ERASE BOARDS! As an instructor, I always have to use them in front of my class. Because we write from left to right, I have to keep space between my writing hand and the board by holding my marker as if it's a fork! Otherwise my hand will erase what I write as I go! And writing in 3 ring binders sucks for almost the same reason! Those damn rings are always where my hand needs to be! Right handed people have it so easy! Imagine if the English language read from right to left...We would rule the world!

The chinese language was read right to left for a long time (it's left to right now), you guys didn't take over the world though. Us right handed people were still the majority.

Arabic is read right to left to, yes?

---

Chad32, it's Avoidaiah who wants to know, I think almost all atheists on this forum has problems with xtianity. So probably he'll reply.

(November 24, 2013 at 7:01 pm)pineapplebunnybounce Wrote: The chinese language was read right to left for a long time (it's left to right now), you guys didn't take over the world though. Us right handed people were still the majority.

Arabic is read right to left to, yes?

Oh, I have no idea. But it wouldn't do me any good. I don't know Chinese or Arabic And, unless they send me overseas to train the Afghan Air-Force, I won't be learning any time soon!

---

P.S.
Maybe not the WHOLE world, but perhaps the English speaking part

(November 24, 2013 at 3:25 am)Avodaiah Wrote: Let's start with the ones on Page 12.

Done; no sweat at all. Next?

(November 17, 2013 at 6:12 pm)Avodaiah Wrote: -Prophecies about Other Countries

Isaiah 45:1 Wrote:Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped,
to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings,
to open doors before him that gates may not be closed:

Babylon's defenses were enormous, at least by ancient standards. Even their walls were more than 70ft thick and 300 feet high. But they had an opening for the Euphrates river to flow through. They diverted it and were able to go through the opening in the wall.

I'm trying to figure out where the prophecy is. All it says is that Yahweh is using Cyrus, which sounds like the ad hoc cop-out someone would add in later to explain why their former war god turned god supreme (at this time, they still believed other gods besides Yahweh existed) could allow them to fall. If Yahweh was their war god, and Babylon defeated Yahweh's favored nation, the inference in those times was that such indicated that the victor nation's gods were greater than the subjugated nation's.
Moving on then from this very easily defeated one.

Quote:

Isaiah 14:23 Wrote:“And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts.

This prophecy basically said that Babylon would become swampland. In the 1800s, when archaeologists tried to dig up Babylon, there were some parts they could not dig up because the water table had risen and submerged it.

And you're saying this couldn't have been added later by someone who had already seen that? Further, is there any indication that there was anything special about this? I could 'prophecy' that some small Egyptian town not near the Nile will one day 'be as the great Sahara itself: dry and desolate.' That's very general and easily fulfillable. Clearly I haven't prophecied, yet I have billions of years for that prophecy to become fulfilled. Voila, easy.

Quote:

Jeremiah 32 Wrote:36 “Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety.

By 538 BC, the Jews were released from what used to be Babylon, and many of them went back to Israel.

This couldn't have been easily added after the fact as a post hoc rationalization of why their war god had failed them against Babylon? Seriously? Dude, this is what I mean when I say you need to think more critically about these. These are easily explained by human folly and/or malice.

Quote:

Nahum 3:15 Wrote:There fire will consume you,
The sword will cut you down;
It will consume you as the locust does.

This prophecy was directed at Nineveh. Archaeologists have found ash covering the ruins of Nineveh, showing that it was indeed destroyed by fire.

...Destroying a city with fire is unique? Not only could this have been added after the fact, it could easily have been self-fulfilling. If they wanted to forge a prophecy, clearly they could write down that Nineveh would be destroyed by fire, and then they destroy it by fire. Brilliant! Clearly divine prophecy at work here!

Quote:-Evidence of Jesus's existence

The fact that Matthew, Mark, and Luke knew Old Testament writings and prophecy does make them less reliable. However, John was not learned in these, and his book depicts many of the same details of Jesus's ministry. Apart from the Bible, there are a number of other sources that talk about Jesus.

Yes it does. If you know the prophecies you are clearly in a much better position to make events try to fit them. Further, the Gospel of Matthew (not actually written by 'Matthew', that's just Church tradition with the Gospels) is particularly bad with prophecy. He practically bends over backward to get the Hebrew Bible prophecies to anally pound their way into his ass of an 'account' of what supposedly happened, to the point here he quotes things like Psalms which in context wasn't indicated to be a prophecy at all.