Since Heaven and Hell are not temporal ..

[Chad32]

We don't fear your god nearly as much as you think we would. You think when we die we'll stand before him and grovel and regretfully give accounts of our wrongs. I highly doubt it. If he wants to talk about my life when I die, i'd be happy to finally have a sit down with him. Talk like people, instead of trying to interpret signs or hearing other people claim to speak for him.

If he's actually a good guy, he'll surely understand. If he isn't, I wouldn't want to worship him anyway.

[Esquilax]

Does not the continued, demonstrable efficacy of those branches of science that do work count as a good enough basis?

Ready, fire, aim. My point was the that science IS efficacious. It's effectiveness has a reason: final causes are at play. Your explanation for the efficacy of science is boils down to 'it works because it works', i.e. circular reasoning.

So, I point out that simply asserting something by fiat is not an effective method of argumentation, and you respond by... asserting the existence of final causes for certain things by fiat.

And... yes, science works because it works. It's a methodology, that's sort of the only way you can measure the efficacy of a methodology; it sets out to accomplish something, and if it succeeds in doing that then it's effective, and if it fails, it does not. Science seeks to make accurate predictions and models of reality, it does so when executed correctly, therefore it is effective. That efficacy does not require an explanation beyond the limited contextual framework of its existence, because the yardstick for "effectiveness" is always relative to the objectives of the thing in question, which in terms of science are man made, and not magical.

I know you love to make completely unsupported demands that every last little thing be justified, ultimately, by some special magic argument from ignorance spell, but sometimes A is just A, because A is defined by humans to mean A. Science is effective because humans determine what science is used for, and it is good at accomplishing that goal. Final causes are not required, nor even relevant.

And not supported. Let's not forget that you didn't bother justifying what you said here at all.

[robvalue]

When will people understand the difference between making a claim and justification for a claim?

If you expect us to just accept whatever you say is true, then you should do the same, and accept anything we say. Or any other religion says. Are you prepared to? Or does everyone else require justification, just not Christianity?

Hmm.

Science is not some evil religion. Basically, it's "what works". It's using reason and evidence, which is the one and only method that has proved to be reliable time and again. You use it all the time. You just don't want to think you use it. And for some reason, people think religion is exempt.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Take your nonsensical 'metaphysical' ramblings to someplace where someone might give a shit. You want to prove to us your version of your sky fairy is real, give us what we want - something testable and verifiable.

I tried and everyone here wouldn't look at it, just made fun of the man and said his occupation limited him from understanding what he spent many years learning. Science and the Bible agreed and no one was interested, because you guys don't want the possibility of God being real, that would mean you would have to accept something you've spent years trying to run in the ground.

I don't need to spend hears running your freaky god squad nonsense into the ground GC. I can do it with one simple question: "where's the evidence?" You have a belief, and you have faith. And neither count for anything if you're trying to convince me that your genocidal fairy demon is real. I want something demonstrable, testable, and verifiable. You lot consistently fail to come up with the goods.

You can spend your entire life trying to figure out how to turn lead into gold and be considered learned by the same crackpots that espouse your idiocy. To those who are able to think, however, you'll always be a loon.

You know that you would have to face Him and answer to all the things you have said about Him.

You're threatening me with fairy tales.

You're not going to look at anything that science might have to show God exists, for you all the price is to high to admit you were wrong.

Stop talking shit. If evidence is out there we'll look at it. Don't impose your own short comings onto us. Don't make your failure to give us anything when we ask for evidence our fault. It's entirely yours. Your inability to evidence your sky demon is entirely your problem, not ours.

Hint: better now than later. Also, one here said that one couldn't tell when an object in space was over a certain area, well here's the answer I can set on my front porch and tell you what town the sun sets on, the same for the moon and the same for certain stars. Not only that, there have been ancient cultures that precisely built building several miles apart, completely out of site of each other, and there walls actually lined up with the setting and or rising moon. that is the moon and the walls were in a perfect plane with each other, that's quite a feat, yet what a man discovered was a few years ago is called worthless by some here. Why because they probably couldn't find their way out of the wood at night, just to put it nicely.

GC

What an amazing story. I could probably predict your bullshit by the stars, GC. How about we try that experiment?

Re: bold text. That's because some of it is worthless. Our understanding of the world and reality develops as time moves on. Theories about our existence that were proposed thousands of years ago have been proven to be false (sun rotating around the earth, for example). Building a structure to align with the celestial bodies is not a massive feat; its simple gemoetry. The ancient Greeks and ancient Egyptians were perfecting gemoetry centuries before your death cult was even a thing. Once you've learnt how to calculate angles and the such, the rest falls into place. It was/is certainly impressive that an evolved ape could begin to figure abstract things like that out, but by today's standards it's child play. Indeed, children are taught geometry before the age of 10 now, at least I was.

And hey, ever take a walk around outside In the 21st century? Ever look at the all the wonderful things we're able to do now? Like sending a probe to land on an asteroid, or hopefully sending a manned mission to Mars? When did the bible predict that? Where in the bible is there a methodology for doing that, GC?

[robvalue]

We know you guys desperately want it to be real. And we can't take that away from you. We can't steal your beliefs. But we are outside that fantasy land, in the real world. Your books and crazy claims mean nothing until there is supporting evidence. There is none that even comes close to being credible. So stop asking scientific people to just believe stuff because you believe it.

God is a prick. God is not real. I'm not scared of imaginary fairies. And threatening me with what will happen if your delusions are true, is about the least scary thing I can imagine. Threats are a last resort when you've abandoned all reason.

I feel great sympathy that you minds have been indoctrinated so hard that you must now say anything at all in order to defend them. I really do feel for anyone in that position. All we are hearing is your mind's defences which are not allowing anything to penetrate the false truths that have been forced into your heads, most likely as vulnerable children.

---

Even now, your mind is telling you that I'm trying to trick you, I'm doing satans work, and so on.

I get nothing out of getting theists to examine their beliefs, other than the hope that there may be one more person who escapes the evil jail of religion. All we want you to do is think.

[Godscreated]

Yes I'm going to say it, I told you so, you refuse to look at evidence that Christ is real just as scripture says. You get mad and close your mind and toss your despite for us around like it's some kind of truth, when you're actually letting something get away.

GC

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Science is not some evil religion. Basically, it's "what works". It's using reason and evidence, which is the one and only method that has proved to be reliable time and again. You use it all the time. You just don't want to think you use it. And for some reason, people think religion is exempt.

You seem to believe I do not like science, well you're wrong I like it just fine, I'm very interested in many things and accept much of what science has to say. Evolution, no, it has no proof, you might claim it does but we both no better, unless you're that brain washed by people looking for things in all the wrong places. So you can get off your high horse about myself and science, I used it when I worked, every day.

GC

[Tonus]

Science and the Bible agreed and no one was interested, because you guys don't want the possibility of God being real, that would mean you would have to accept something you've spent years trying to run in the ground.

Most of the scientists (if not all of them) who set mankind on its present course were believers in god, and I would not doubt that many of them were trying to find and prove god as they went about their work. That they never found god is very telling. That people of all walks of life continue to try to find god and fail, to the point where they tell us that god cannot be found, is equally telling.

But you are right in one thing-- I don't want the god of the Bible to be real, because he is a very scary being. Even his most devoted followers have to admit that they have no guarantees that he won't do the most terrible things to them, they just pretend that if they are good and devout little children they might not get his attention. Because a god who is capable of anything yet culpable for nothing can turn you inside-out and you would have to thank him for it.

If I thought your god was real I'd do the same thing you do-- go into full blown denial and pretend that he is the greatest person who could possibly ever exist. And then I'd just keep hoping that he never gets it in his head to mess me up, because his imagination and his wrath would be as limitless as his power, and I'm just one of his chew toys.

[robvalue]

Amen to that. I would hope that if there is a being of such great power, he'd be anything but the monster of the bible. But luckily I have no good reason to think there's any such being.

A few points in the bible agreeing with science isn't remarkable. In fact it's downright rubbish. If it was the word of God, I would expect it to all agree with science. But it's only about 10% accurate at best. (Source: my arse.) Even if all the testable claims in the bible agreed with science, that still doesn't prove that the untestable claims are true.

Fact is, if it can't even get the basic science right, how am I supposed to believe that it gets supernatural unknowable information right?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Yes I'm going to say it, I told you so, you refuse to look at evidence that Christ is real just as scripture says. You get mad and close your mind and toss your despite for us around like it's some kind of truth, when you're actually letting something get away.

GC

GC, I take it as a given that whatever you believe/follow must be wrong and work backwards from there. I'm yet to be disappointed with the conclusions drawn as a result.

Asking you for evidence for you absurd beliefs is the very antithesis of 'closed minded'. That you think it is really just demonstrates to everyone how fucked up your mind must really be.

[abaris]

Evolution, no, it has no proof, you might claim it does but we both no better, unless you're that brain washed by people looking for things in all the wrong places. So you can get off your high horse about myself and science, I used it when I worked, every day.

GC

You don't know the scientific term theory. Simple as that.

As for Jesus, there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever outside the bible. And claiming one single book to hold all the evidence doesn't cut it. On the contrary, looking at the broader picture, everything Jesus has supposedly done was already there, done by older deities and heroes and later attributed to the newest arrival.