(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: Vaccines destroyed polio and lots of other diseases including the much worse smallpox. Vaccines (and pasteurization) were "invented" by Louis Pasteur, a Christian. Many advances in Science, Technology, and medicine were the result of research by Christians. We do more than just pray. Oh, and praying started at least 6,000 years ago.
The benefits of what they did were for all of humanity, not just Christians. Unlike Christianity.
(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: Oh, and praying started at least 6,000 years ago.
LOL, I think it's existed in some form for a lot longer than that. Still, I was referring to people praying to Jesus for respite from plague, cholera, malaria or one of god's other lovely inventions that we call "diseases" (or perhaps even being burned by Christians for being ugly or pagan or black or simply not Christian) - but the prayers failing spectacularly until people started removing their personal beliefs from what they studied as a matter of process.
(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: Ever been to Haiti? We type happily about things like this while people butcher one another and starve to death. I've been there. I've seen it. It's not depression. It's reality. Try explaining yourself to an eight year old boy who watched his father macheted to death. I believe his name is Andrea (they speak French in Haiti). I'll never forget the look in his eyes.
Therefore god exists? Not only a non sequitur, but a bit of a contradiction given the religiosity of the island. No, I haven't been there though, and I am glad of it.
(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: God is also described as compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, taking care of orphans.
Just like he did in Haiti? Or Rwanda? Or...
(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: God is angry because we ruined the world we were supposed to take care of.
Yes, we "ruined" it by increasing people's life expectancy, tackling diseases, cleaning drinking water, building sewerage, educating our children, tolerating minorities... In fact the ones doing the ruining were most frequently the religious (Haiti, Rwanda, FYR...). No doubt you, like all believers, consider your personal flavour of religion to be the "one true" one (because all those lovely Christians who brought about the Inquisitions and the Crusades "weren't real Christians"). But the simple fact of history is that you aren't. A real Christian would be a Jew, because that's how Jesus died (assuming that he lived). And you simply hold on to some modern rationalisation of a Roman religion that brutalised the world for centuries. Point is though, irrespective of the merits of any particular variant, faith seems to have inspired many more wrong believers than right ones. A good thing to have? Good grief no.
(April 1, 2012 at 4:16 pm)wisdom searcher Wrote: Those people he slaughtered thought it was a good idea to sacrifice their children to the gods, and that really makes God angry.
Despite the fact that God requested Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? Yes, very credible that he would then get really angry about it - what with being "slow to anger" and "merciful" and stuff. But no - Yahweh was just an invention of a Bedouin tribe and their delusions about being "chosen", and everyone else was just sword fodder.
