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Hello atheistforum
RE: Hello atheistforum
(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: You do doubt them though; you explain them away as delusion. I explain them as being either authentically from God or authentically not from God.

I don't doubt that people have them and that the feelings are real. Feelings are what you feel, they're pretty much real by definition unless you're lying about them. I do interpret experiences differently from you. You explain non-Christian's experiences by invoking another spirit who fools them, I explain it with the clear scientific evidence that these experiences are natural and produced by altered states of consciousness.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It isn't hard to wrap my mind around. I came from a secular background, remember? I've seen the world as you see it now. Neither do I dispute that someone who was born again could fall away, although it is far more rare.

Hm. Perhaps like you have trouble seeing born-agains becoming atheists, I have trouble believing you ever saw the world through a skeptical and science-minded lens. But I will assume you were at least close enough for discussion purposes. It would be presumptuous of me to think I can infer your journey better than you can report it.

It seems on various skeptics and atheist forums, it's the ex-born-agains that are more common than the ex-liberal Christians. I suspect your sample is skewed because of the intense social pressure in fundamentalist religious communities to conform. Those who have doubts are more likely to leave the community without sharing that the reason is that they no longer believe in God anymore. Now I'm not claiming that born-agains are highly likely to defect, just that, anecdotally, there's a mild tendency for atheists to be ex-born-agains, bearing in mind we're a small minority. A friend of mine is an ex-missionary, another is an ex-preacher. My pastor is an atheist who started out as a Baptist minister. You may be right about it being rare for born-agains to become atheists, but you should consider that you may be underestimating the frequency. I suspect that a rigid faith is brittle.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: What I don't understand is how someone who claims to have loved God, sincerely and truly loved Him, could reject Him so easily. You had a lifetime of experiences which you threw away over your skepticism of the bible, when God had given you all of the evidence in the world to trust Him. That isn't love, I'm sorry to tell you.

Actually, I found that in pretty much every instance in which my church and the Bible differed with science, it was science that was correct and could prove it. I love truth more than I love believing in a fantasy.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Also, to note, speaking in tongues isn't direct evidence of being born again or having the Holy Spirit. That isn't biblical. There are however false spirits in the church that emulate these things. Check out "kundalini warning" on youtube sometime.

Yes, I've run into the 'you were in the wrong denomination, those speaking-in-tongue guys are channeling false spirits' approach to my experiences before. It's funny how some Christians are so quick to dismiss the genuiness of the experiences of others while expecting respect for their own claims.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: The devil can make secular life go very smoothly for you. He has no reason to attack you any longer.

So the druggies and hookers and thugs and murderers and thieves aren't on the devil's good side? Do you know what an ad hoc explanation is and what the problems with it are? Didn't you start out claiming that you were suffering in life and Jesus made your life smoother? I imagine one of the joys of not using critical thinking is always being able to have things both ways.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Just 50 years ago scientific evidence claimed that the Universe didn't have a beginning, something the secular world used to mock Christianity. Scientific evidence can be contrary to reality.

The evidence wasn't contrary to reality. We just lacked the means to detect it. There wasn't evidence the current state of the cosmos was eternal (except for the 1st Law of Thermodynamics), just a lack of evidence to base a convincing case otherwise. We didn't know the universe was expanding, for instance. I notice you're fine with claiming science supports a beginning to our cosmos while dismissing that the evidence that brings us to that conclusion necessarily makes it billions of years old.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I used to believe in an old age of the earth and evolution, but after investigating the actual evidence, I found those beliefs unjustified.

I regret being dismissive, but what actually happened is that you started getting your information from creationist sites that specialize in trying to find any weaknesses in scientific measurement of age that they can; instead of from mainstream scientific sources. This is like a conspiracy theorist being impressed by the inconsistencies in the account of Princess Diana's death and concluding it wasn't an accident, or by issues with 9/11 reports and conclude our own government bombed us. These kind of theories have a power to suck people in, because we seek patterns, and nothing is perfect. If you scrutinize anything involving humans for weakenesses, you will find something. It's not just celebrities whose deaths are missing details, it's just that celebrities are more compelling subjects for nitpicking the police reports to death. How many people in apparent good health drop dead while jogging? That doesn't mean the police are incapable of coming up with the most likely cause of death. It means that armchair critics with an agenda can distort any inquiry.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It's good to hear that you are at least open to the truth. Many atheists would never admit this.

Maybe it's due to my perspective as a former insider.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I don't blame people for what they believe. I was just as deceived as they were.

Of course not. You're a decent human being.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Neither was I predisposed to accept Christianity; due to my beliefs, I was predisposed to reject Christianity. I explored many different religions, philosophies, and belief systems. It was only because of signs I had received that I decided to give Christianity a try.

My signs seemed to run the other direction. My experience was not standard in that my family was split up and my parents belonged to different fundamentalist Pentecostal sects, differing in a point of doctrine but agreeing that the members of the other church were deceived and hellbound. Perhaps what you think of churches that practice glossalalia.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: You made implications that the gospels were invented narratives designed to control people. That is what I would call a conspiracy.

It's what I would call salesmanship. Smile A conspiracy necessarily implies a group of people got together in secret and decided to make these changes. I propose they are the result of organic changes to the narratives over the years before they were written, and perhaps an individual or two took the initiative to spice up the narrative independently. 'Pious fraud' is an age-old phenomenon. How can it be wrong to rig a statue of the Virgin to weep if it reinforces the faith of the people and gets them into church?

However, at no point does anyone need to deliberately alter the narrative. The reason it's so good is that it evolved. Narratives naturally vary, especially if based on oral tradition. The ones that are most compelling are retained.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: According to scripture, Matthias was there from the beginning, and was one of the people who travelled around with Jesus and saw His miracles. It is likely that He also saw the resurrected Jesus.

If that's good enough for you to believe it, I've no complaints.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: At least two of the gospels were written by direct witnesses, and the other two were written by people who had access to the testimony of direct witnesses. If you want to say the resurrection wasn't literal, you would have to say they made it up. If they made it up, they certainly wouldn't have died for it.

It's almost like you're divorced from human experience. Just now, although there's no narrative to support Matthias witnessing the resurrection, you're believing it because it forms a better narrative for your argument if all the apostles who were martyred saw the resurrection, and hey, whose to say he wasn't there? That is exactly how narratives get changed, especially if there's a long gap between the event and writing it down. Wanting to believe is a powerful force, and we don't know for sure if the apostles believed in a literal resurrection. We do know that people will castrate themselves and commit suicide if their faith in a charismatic leader has them believing that a spaceship hiding behind a comet is going to transport their souls up if they show enough faith. Again, and I'm not sure why you keep bringing this up when I've repeatedly said this, I don't doubt the apostles believed...I'm just not sure exactly what it was they believed in.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: The testimony states the apostles did not expect a resurrection, despite Jesus telling them about it many times. They were hunkered down in Jerusalem, living in fear of the jewish authorities. The movement would have died then and there, if not for the total convinction of the apostles that Christ had risen. Witness the transformation of their personalities between the record of the gospels and Acts. Before the Holy Spirit came, they had a weak knowledge and were mainly bumbling and ignorant. Afterwards, they became bold, couragous, and possessing a superior knowledge of the scripture and the teachings of Christ. Again, you either have to say they made it up, or something happened there that you can't just explain away.

Or in the gospels they were supporting cast while while in Acts and the Epistles they were the protagonists. You're assuming everything happened exactly as written as if by an unbiased observer. That these books are profoundly different from other books. However, if they were mere humans writing them from their own limited perspectives with their own biases, there's nothing to explain away. The change in character serves the interest of making the narrative more compelling. Harry Potter becomes more assertive and bold in later books, too.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Were they also mistaken about all of the miracles? Do you think they just imagined Jesus feeding 5000 people with a few loaves of bread, for instance? You basically have to say it is all made up, but then you have explain why they would die for what they knew was a lie.

You're saying that people in a book knew that other events in a book really happened. You're assuming they were motivated by the big miracles they witnessed rather than being motivated much like any other ferevent believers and the miracles being added later by the writers. Not only didn't they know it wa a lie, they may not even have known all these stories themselves. If this kind of thing was happening in a Hindu story, like Krishna lifting a hill, most Christians wouldn't have trouble dismissing it as fanciful, which they can only do by applying a double standard in how they evaluate religious claims.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Neither does it make any sense to use the lack of documentation as a point of skepticism when it is actually remarkable how much documentation we do have.

You lower the standards because you believe. We would expect contemporary documentation from sources outside the NT if these extraordinary events involving earthquakes, dead people walking the streets, kings slaughtering children, and so forth actually happening. The lack of such is striking. What we have is believers writing an account decades later when the tale has had plenty of time to grow without outside sources confirming any of the miracles, which is exactly what one would expect if they didn't really happen as described. You should hear my Pentecostal parents. The fuel gauge reads E but they make it to the tent revival anyway. Suddenly fumes or an inaccurate reading are less likely explanations than a miracle. Two thousand years ago maybe a big crowd gets hungry and it turns out someone thought to bring snacks; by the time it's been retold a thousand times it all started with one sandwich. What you have to establish is that this religious tale is more believable than all the others...and you can't, because if you apply the same standards to all, the reasonable conclusion is that no religion has real miracles.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: If Jesus didn't die, how did He get out of the tomb?

How do you know he was in the tomb? The same book that tells you he wasn't in it. Remember, my point is that the Gospel narratives were written decades later by partisans. It's the narrative itself that I question, so it's not much of a counter to point to events that I doubt were accurately reported. However, if I were to play along, supposedly there was an earthquake, so no biggie to escape if the rock rolled a little bit out of the way on it's own. I would totally think that angels did it if I was a disciple (remember my parents?).

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: One person having a vision, that's fine. Dozens (hundreds) of people walking, talking, touching, interacting, and sitting around a campfire eating fish with a vision isn't exactly plausible.

Who were these hundreds of witnesses? Where is their testimony? Y'know yesterday, I levitated my way to work. There were hundreds of witnesses. Do you think claiming there were hundreds of witnesses equals there being hundreds of witnesses?

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: That's what you assume, but do you understand how radiometric dating works? You probably don't understand how many assumptions are inherent in those dating methods.

The main assumption is that an omnipotent being isn't out to deceive them regarding the age of the earth and the universe.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Scientists will use the methods to cross verify eachother but they are still based on the same faulty (and unprovable) assumptions.

Like the rate of atomic decay being constant instead of much faster in the past. It's a big assumption and about the only evidence for it is that the planet is habitable instead of destroyed by runaway fission back when elements decayed faster.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: You also probably don't realize that these dating methods give ranges of dates, and scientists simply pick and choose from these date ranges and discard the "anomalous" results.

Yes, I thought they gave the Greenwich Mean Time and day of the week for exactly when a rock was formed. Thanks for setting me straight. Wink Shades

They select the most likely date range out of the broader date range based on independent evidence. And, as always with science, the conclusion is tentative and will happily be modifed if new evidence suggests the original conclusion was inaccurate.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: This is the opposite of science, that you interpret the evidence by the conclusion you wish to reach.

Strange that you should realize what a problem that is when real scientists do it, but how it applies to your side seems to completely escape you. Yes, scientists expect their findings not to contradict what they already know, it's hard to get through the morning without expecting your breakfast to be edible and your clothes to fit; that the rules aren't going to suddenly change on us is an inference, but it's hard to see how it's an inference that could be more strongly supported.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: We also know that when we have used these dating methods on things we do know the ages of, they always give extremely faulty results.

Yes, and real scientists know what kind of objects a given dating method can measure the age of accurately, which it can't, and why they're accurate for some things and not others. Leave it to a creationist to use a method for dating a specific kind of volcanic rock on a sedimentary deposit and concluding the there's something wrong with the method. And some of those known ages? They're very, very, old.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: If we can't trust these results for things we know the ages of, how can we trust them for things we don't know the ages of?

Figuring out which methods give us results that are accurate when we know the ages of an object are how we figured out how to date things in the first place.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: The tree has no representation in reality, first of all. It comes entirely from the imagination of evolutionary biologists. Second, your ideas about phylogeny are not accurate. Yes, there is the appearance of nested hierarchies, and there also many non-nested patterns. The theory of evolution has to be able to explain both occurrances, and it cannot. Consider this quote from a Science article called "Is it time to uproot the tree of life?"

A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major groupings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation has gotten even more confusing . . . Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the beginnings of life's three kingdoms . . . When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from the truth," says Claire Fraser, head of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Instead, the comparisons have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well . .

Gotta love quote-mining. Yeah, it has turned out that there are types of micro-organisms that are entire branches of the tree in and of themselves. There are more than three kingdoms, it's just that the others are composed entirely of microorganisms. Yay science for changing with new evidence. It's even possible that some day a whole different tree composed entirely of microorganisms that shares no common ancestors with us will be discovered, maybe deep underground, that represents a separate abiogenesis event. That addition to our knowledge would be amazing, and would do nothing to detract from the evidence for common descent for the rest of life.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: The findings are not as universal as you have claimed, in fact they are the opposite. As far as your critiques go, how would you know what is wasteful and what isn't? Again, you are going on your presumption of deep time. You believe a comet killed the dinosaurs, whereas I believe a flood wiped them out, as well as all the other creatures you attribute to the various extinction events. You say God is not novel; that is kind of a joke when you examine the incredible diversity in the world, but why should He reinvent the wheel? Why would He have ten different versions of pumping blood throughout the body when one does the job?

Why would he have the same endogneous retrovirus sequences (genetic information inserted by viruses) in both great apes and humans? Why would he have the same broken gene for making vitamin C (it's not missing, it's present in both apes and humans, it just doesn't work anymore because apes got plenty of vitamin C in their diet so there weren't any selection pressures to eliminate individuals with the broken gene) and give guinea pigs an entirely different problem in synthesizing their own vitamin C? Why do humans have two fewer chromsomes than apes, and those chromosomes are clearly two sets of ape chromosomes joined end to end? Given an omnipotent designer, the most likely explanation is it wants us to think we're related to apes because none of those things have to do with design, they're just markers that indicate common inheritance.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It is a question of efficiency and also durability, versatility, and utility. It is all a marvel. All in all, the whole of nature works together seamlessly, so I don't see where you are getting a committee from.

There are plenty of seams. Organs that are neither fully functional nor fully gone, whales with bones where their ancestors would have had legs, snakes with vestigial hips, pandas with poorly functioning 'thumbs' and a carnivorous digestive system, human beings not fully adapted to walking upright and thus prone to back and foot problems, connected breathing and eating tubes, joined waste excretion and reproductive features, human retinas placed to cause a blind spot; all signs of a natural process making do with what was already available and incapable of fully novel design without thousands of tiny, inching, intermediate steps. Evolution has to make do with altering what's already there, and that's what we see in the world around us; with plenty of examples of things a mere human engineer can see could have been done better.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I have nothing against science at all, just bad science.

It's bad science to determine what's good and bad in science based on whether it supports your religious views.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: What you don't understand is that when it comes to evolutionary theory and dating methodology, it is exactly what you have accused "fundamentalists" of.

What you don't understand is that creationist sites lie freely. They don't care about the truth, only supporting their agenda. They take quotes out of context, mislead about scientific conclusions were arrived at, and in general are liars for Jesus. I'd say they do more to make atheists than any atheists do.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: The conclusion is assumed and anything which disputes that conclusion is dismissed.

The conclusion was arrived at over generations of field and lab work, which at any point could have been thrown into an uproar by a dolphin fossil in the Precambrian or dinosaur bones showing signs of cooking and tool marks. You're asking us to reinvent the wheel every time we look at a fossil. It's not a reasonable demand.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I hope you don't mind but I am going to recycle a reply I made to someone else regarding the skepticism towards a conspiracy:

I like this quotation by Max Planck:

A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Maxwell Planck

The conspiracy is human nature.

The word 'conspiracy' has a specific, well-understood meaning. Human nature is not a conspiracy, although it can be an explanation for why certain things seem like conspiracies that actually aren't.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Many scientists are atheists, especially the elites who control the peer reviews and the funding,

Yes, for some reason the members of the American Academy of Science and the Royal Society, the most famous and accomplished scientists in the world, tend to be very disproportionately atheist.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: and atheists rather like the idea that they can explain away special creation with evolution.

There's no evidence of special creation to bother to explain away.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It gives them great comfort to have that alternative and it isn't something they are going to give up very easily. They even admit it:

Here come the out-of-context quote mines. Undecided

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution

George Wald - Harvard Professor
Nobel Laureate

the worlds brightest minds building on years of research and millions in lab equipment and computers can not make non living matter produce living matter

evolution became a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to bend their observations to fit in with it.

H S Lipso
Physics professor

we take the side of evolutionary science because we have a prior commitment to materialism. it is not that the methods..of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation..on the contrary..we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.

richard lewontin

harvard professor of zoology and biology

If I were you, these quotations would disturb me.

If you were me, you'd understand that even if they weren't quote-mined, it's not quotes that matter, it's evidence.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: They prove that not all scientists are the open-minded champions of reason that you believe they are, and that even if they had evidence that contradicted the prevailing theories, they wouldn't consider it.

You shouldn't speculate about what I believe, you aren't good at it. Scientists are better educated than most people and knowledgeable in their specific fields, but they're as ornery and close-minded as any other homo sapiens. They're so bad that it takes the scientific method to keep them honest.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Science isn't interested in a young earth; in fact it is running away from it and screaming.

Science isn't aware of any persuasive evidence for a young earth and it's laughable the way you're projecting how you feel about the overwhelming evidence for an old earth onto them.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Simply put, a young earth means the bible is true, and as you have just seen, they don't want it to be true.

Again, there's a Nobel prize and a solid place in the history books for any scientist who can prove it to be true. And it will trouble me not a bit, might even become an agnostic theist if that one gets overturned.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: There are scientists out there working on these things, and because of the prejudice of the scientific community, which I have just demonstrated, they are mostly ostrasized, prevented from having gainful employment, denied access to resources and facilities, and locked out of the process.

And what those poor saps have in common is a firm grasp of the conclusion they want and an obsession with finding evidence to support it. I've heard somewhere that that's bad science.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Your skepticism of anything that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the day cheapens the spirit of inquiry that science is supposed to be built upon.

Yes, science was built on believing things without evidence...wait, what?!

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: What we're dealing with are a number of sacred cows which are so intergreted into the secular mind that you couldn't seperate them without extensive surgery. There are several good theories which can explain distant starlight, and what you apparently don't realize is that you have your own light travel time problem as well, because the big bang theory doesn't explain why we are seeing light from billions of light years away. The uniform temperature of the CMB is a huge problem for big bang cosmology, and the reason cosmic inflation was invented; it is simply a fudge factor.

The difference between you and me is that when I investigated science, I got it from actual scientists. I started off thinking evolution was hooey, but when I actually looked up from what my pastor told me and books like Evidence That Demands a Verdict; I found in museums and laboratories and universities and libraries how science is actually conducted, why it works, and how and why the evidence has led them to where they are. I suppose if the intertubez were around when I was in my twenties and early thirties I might have found it easy to cocoon myself with sources that told me what I wanted to hear.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Creation scientists are real scientists, so please don't trot out the tired old atheist line here. Many of them are highly credentialed and have made many significant discoveries, as well as being published in peer reviewed journals.

However, the ones that are being published in peer review journals are not publishing articles that claim to disprove evolution or that the earth is young. The ones that are publishing such things are putting them into vanity journals. What makes a scientist real is doing real science that has results that add to our body of knowledge. Creationism hasn't done that yet.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I find that atheists will believe any ridiculous theory that scientists come up with, (like something coming from nothing for instance) but the idea that the Universe could be intelligently designed, and that this is something that could be investigated is somehow quackary.

And your suggestion on how to investigate intelligent design is what? So far, all intelligent design 'researchers' have been able to come up with is: 'hey, that looks irreducibly complex to me!'

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It is real science to investigate intelligent design, especially, in the case of the information in DNA, that it is a much better explanation of the facts.

I would love to hear one actual, true fact about life that evolution doesn't explain as well as or better than special creation. Because thinking I'm right isn't as important to me as actually being right. If I'm wrong I want to find out so I can correct myself.

Based on evolution and continental drift a biogeographer can make accurate predictions in advance about the number of novel species to be found on an unexplored island if it's size, distance from the mainland, and how long ago geology suggests it was connected to the mainland, if ever. You know why it's so important to know how old the island is and whether it was connected to a continent? Because the farther an island is from a continent and the longer it's been separated from a continent, the more novel species it will have. Why? Because evolution needs space and time to produce those novel species. What's the special creation explanation for that?

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: Substitute struck down for shut out and it'll be more accurate. Did you know that public education was started in this country by the "Old Deluder Satan Act" which instituted the scriptures as our primary means of education? The only reason we do not teach the bible in school any longer is because this country has become more secular and secular people hate religion.

Millions of secular people are religious. Secular and atheist aren't synonymous. A plumbing handbook is secular, too. People are secular if they believe we're all better off if our government remains as neutral as possible on religous issues. Do you have any idea of the carping and whining between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews when we had prayer in public schools?

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: It has nothing to do with science or not science, it has to do with a worldview and an agenda.

That would be more convincing if the science weren't all on one side.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: There is nothing in science ruling out a Creator,

True, science has just not come across anything that seems to require anything other than natural processes as an explanation.

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: there is simply bigotry towards the idea.

Including among the over half of American scientists who believe in God?

(February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am)brotherlylove Wrote: I don't expressly disagree with you here; I have met many atheists who claim that hypocripsy by Christians is the main reason why they don't believe Jesus is God. There are many out there who are ruining Christs reputation, and this is mainly because the church, in times where there is little persecution, becomes completely apostate. It's the "easy believism" I have been talking about, where anyone who recites the sinners prayer is now a Christian. They are the ones who go to church on Sunday and live like hell the rest of the week and act just like the world does.

They are unregenerate but the world can't tell the difference. You're a Christian if you say you are. What has happened in America is that the church fell asleep during the 60s and is now waking up too late. The country moved on without the church, and now the church is struggling to stay relevent in the culture, at least in the national discourse portrayed in the media. The reality is 80 percent of everyone is Christian in this country, however, how many of them are actually saved is impossible to say.

Which reminds me of what I say when someone tells me I'm an atheist just so I can sin without being accountable to God: I've not noticed believing in God to be much of a barrier to sinning. Smile

Years ago, I started using the term 'Christianist' to describe the Christians who annoy me to distinguish them from the majority of decent and mostly reasonable for day-to-day purposes Christians out there who treasure the same liberties and peaceful coexistence I do. Because Christians are more complicated than that, you can't lump them all together. Over-generalizing is a sin. Wink

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Messages In This Thread
Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 5:18 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Darwinian - February 2, 2012 at 5:20 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by 5thHorseman - February 2, 2012 at 5:23 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 5:31 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Darwinian - February 2, 2012 at 5:38 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 6:30 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 2, 2012 at 6:44 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Ace Otana - February 13, 2012 at 11:00 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 2, 2012 at 5:51 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Faith No More - February 2, 2012 at 5:58 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 6:34 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Faith No More - February 2, 2012 at 8:03 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 9:22 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Whateverist - February 3, 2012 at 10:43 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Doubting Thomas - February 2, 2012 at 6:32 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 6:38 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Minimalist - February 2, 2012 at 6:34 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 2, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 2, 2012 at 6:35 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 6:44 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Norfolk And Chance - February 6, 2012 at 4:27 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 6, 2012 at 4:41 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 6, 2012 at 9:05 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Doubting Thomas - February 2, 2012 at 6:45 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 7:23 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Michelle_Patton - February 2, 2012 at 7:33 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 7:43 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Michelle_Patton - February 2, 2012 at 8:08 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 9:16 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Michelle_Patton - February 2, 2012 at 10:28 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 11:01 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 13, 2012 at 11:54 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 3, 2012 at 12:22 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 2, 2012 at 6:46 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Doubting Thomas - February 2, 2012 at 6:55 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 2, 2012 at 9:22 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 2, 2012 at 9:28 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by frankiej - February 2, 2012 at 9:43 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 10:16 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 2, 2012 at 10:35 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 2, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 2, 2012 at 11:32 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 2, 2012 at 11:38 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 3, 2012 at 6:20 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by RW_9 - February 3, 2012 at 12:19 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 3, 2012 at 12:51 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Rayaan - February 3, 2012 at 1:11 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 3, 2012 at 1:36 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 3, 2012 at 12:34 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 3, 2012 at 12:47 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Bgood - February 3, 2012 at 1:12 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by RW_9 - February 3, 2012 at 1:15 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 3, 2012 at 2:39 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 3, 2012 at 10:59 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by RW_9 - February 3, 2012 at 3:11 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by LastPoet - February 3, 2012 at 9:50 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 3, 2012 at 5:44 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 3, 2012 at 6:16 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Erinome - February 3, 2012 at 10:50 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Doubting Thomas - February 3, 2012 at 3:01 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Violet - February 3, 2012 at 3:09 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cyberman - February 3, 2012 at 4:01 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Faith No More - February 3, 2012 at 5:59 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 3, 2012 at 6:39 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cinjin - February 4, 2012 at 4:18 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 4:32 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cyberman - February 3, 2012 at 6:18 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cinjin - February 3, 2012 at 6:26 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by padraic - February 3, 2012 at 7:49 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 2:51 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Faith No More - February 3, 2012 at 11:18 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 4, 2012 at 3:03 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 3:21 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 4, 2012 at 4:30 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 4, 2012 at 5:45 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 4, 2012 at 5:48 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 4, 2012 at 9:56 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 4, 2012 at 5:55 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 4, 2012 at 5:57 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 4, 2012 at 6:10 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Faith No More - February 4, 2012 at 9:59 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 6:13 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by downbeatplumb - February 5, 2012 at 1:42 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by downbeatplumb - February 4, 2012 at 10:17 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by popeyespappy - February 4, 2012 at 10:50 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 4, 2012 at 11:10 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by SophiaGrace - February 4, 2012 at 2:34 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 4, 2012 at 5:14 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 4, 2012 at 6:53 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 7:26 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 4, 2012 at 8:22 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 4, 2012 at 9:25 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 4, 2012 at 11:49 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 5, 2012 at 12:46 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 5, 2012 at 1:26 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 5, 2012 at 4:25 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 5, 2012 at 12:12 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 5, 2012 at 2:29 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 5, 2012 at 3:16 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 6, 2012 at 12:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Sciwoman - February 5, 2012 at 1:48 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 4, 2012 at 11:54 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 5, 2012 at 12:34 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 5, 2012 at 12:39 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by reverendjeremiah - February 5, 2012 at 12:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 5, 2012 at 12:58 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Sciwoman - February 5, 2012 at 1:25 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 5, 2012 at 9:30 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 5, 2012 at 9:35 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by SophiaGrace - February 5, 2012 at 11:43 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by RW_9 - February 5, 2012 at 1:10 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by SilverFrog - February 5, 2012 at 4:39 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 5, 2012 at 6:24 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by renew - February 5, 2012 at 9:57 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 6, 2012 at 8:19 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 6, 2012 at 9:22 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 6, 2012 at 8:54 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 6, 2012 at 9:15 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 6, 2012 at 10:24 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 7, 2012 at 7:26 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 7, 2012 at 12:56 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 8, 2012 at 6:08 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Zen Badger - February 8, 2012 at 7:06 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 10, 2012 at 12:11 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 10, 2012 at 12:46 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 10, 2012 at 4:06 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 11, 2012 at 5:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Michelle_Patton - February 11, 2012 at 6:01 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 13, 2012 at 10:02 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 13, 2012 at 10:16 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 14, 2012 at 12:45 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Darwinian - February 11, 2012 at 6:21 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 11, 2012 at 6:26 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by downbeatplumb - February 11, 2012 at 6:36 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 11, 2012 at 6:52 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 13, 2012 at 10:16 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 11, 2012 at 12:58 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by renew - February 6, 2012 at 10:41 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 6, 2012 at 12:07 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 14, 2012 at 5:54 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 15, 2012 at 6:51 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 15, 2012 at 7:17 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 16, 2012 at 1:34 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 16, 2012 at 4:46 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 16, 2012 at 7:28 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Nebuloso - February 16, 2012 at 7:46 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 16, 2012 at 8:10 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 20, 2012 at 4:42 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 18, 2012 at 1:48 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 18, 2012 at 9:00 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by downbeatplumb - February 18, 2012 at 11:37 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 6, 2012 at 9:02 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 6, 2012 at 9:18 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 7, 2012 at 2:07 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 7, 2012 at 9:00 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Abracadabra - February 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 9, 2012 at 3:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Shell B - February 10, 2012 at 12:16 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 10, 2012 at 12:55 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 11, 2012 at 1:18 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Mister Agenda - February 11, 2012 at 1:28 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 11, 2012 at 1:34 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 13, 2012 at 10:10 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 13, 2012 at 10:24 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by leo-rcc - February 13, 2012 at 11:03 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Ace Otana - February 13, 2012 at 11:11 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 13, 2012 at 11:17 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Ace Otana - February 13, 2012 at 11:19 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by leo-rcc - February 14, 2012 at 6:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Ace Otana - February 14, 2012 at 6:54 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 13, 2012 at 11:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cyberman - February 13, 2012 at 2:26 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 13, 2012 at 10:02 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Cyberman - February 13, 2012 at 11:19 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 13, 2012 at 11:52 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 15, 2012 at 8:46 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by thesummerqueen - February 15, 2012 at 9:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by The Grand Nudger - February 15, 2012 at 9:49 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Nebuloso - February 16, 2012 at 8:40 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 16, 2012 at 10:37 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Nebuloso - February 16, 2012 at 11:40 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 17, 2012 at 12:43 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Whateverist - February 17, 2012 at 1:19 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by brotherlylove - February 17, 2012 at 1:47 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Whateverist - February 17, 2012 at 1:53 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Nebuloso - February 17, 2012 at 3:54 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 16, 2012 at 8:58 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 17, 2012 at 1:36 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by KichigaiNeko - February 17, 2012 at 5:13 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Sciwoman - February 17, 2012 at 7:42 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by J.D. - February 18, 2012 at 3:17 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Sciwoman - February 18, 2012 at 1:14 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Undeceived - February 18, 2012 at 1:40 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Sciwoman - February 18, 2012 at 2:35 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Undeceived - February 19, 2012 at 4:04 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Phil - February 19, 2012 at 8:43 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Undeceived - February 20, 2012 at 4:36 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Whateverist - February 19, 2012 at 5:45 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Epimethean - February 18, 2012 at 2:21 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by ElDinero - February 19, 2012 at 8:45 am
RE: Hello atheistforum - by thesummerqueen - February 19, 2012 at 10:14 pm
RE: Hello atheistforum - by Bgood - February 20, 2012 at 12:14 am

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