Atheists are mentally ill

[Ryantology]

The evidence is there if you look. It's whether you want to accept it as evidence or not and you yourself don't want to. The thing about God is that he is like a shy lover so he won't force himself onto you if you're not interested.

And that's precisely why it doesn't fit the criteria of 'evidence'. It is taking some random object or action and assuming it is related to some god. I demand evidence that, independently or even in spite of any preconceived notions anyone might have, points to the existence of God. Any evidence which relies solely on faith to establish its veracity is garbage.

If you have Western cultural values you ultimately have Christian values. Some of them have eroded a little but it's still intact. We may even be closer to what Christ taught now than we were in the theocratic middle ages.

Again, this is a subtly wrong. Christians share a lot of the same values as I hold, but that doesn't mean they originated with Christianity. It is the height of arrogance to suggest that Christianity invented values of any kind.

You can't reject the resurrection quite as easily as say you would reject Mohammed claim that he flew up to heaven on a winged horse or Joesph Smiths translation of golden tablets only he could read through magical stones inside a hat.

Yes, I can. They're all completely absurd and obviously made-up.

As an atheist/non-believer you have to work a bit harder at explaining what this event was based on and what it was people apparently experienced. You can still do it of course but you need to put some more effort into this one.

Which is, in every way, a better idea than settling for an obviously incorrect answer just because people might like that better.

If you think God is a ridiculous concept with no real chance of existing then you will just have to explain away the resurrection and the empty tomb as some kind of hysteria.

I would explain both as tall tales which gained legitimacy amongst uneducated and superstitious people. Simple and almost certainly true.

Romantic relationships have their rough and rocky patches as well if you want to see those parts of the OT/Torah that way.

The OT seems less to me like a strained relationship and more like a deranged psychopath engaging in frequent rages of bloodlust, inventing arbitrary crimes which are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to avoid committing, and then inventing cruel and utterly disproportionate punishments for those 'criminals'. And, of course, for their families, too, even when they are guilty of nothing due to being infants or children.

I suppose you think they're all 100% purely made up and fictional without a shred of truth anywhere within and you and 2% of the human race have access to the full pure and exclusive truth, that you alone somehow know. I think my view is a little more moderate/liberal than yours, less dogmatic.

No one has access to the pure truth and there is no such thing as an exclusive truth. That said, yes, religions are all 100% purely made up and fictional without a shred of truth anywhere within.

The evidence is the eyewitness reports these were collected and put into the Bible. You'll notice it was women who discovered the empty tomb, they wouldn't have been viewed as reliable eyewitnesses at the time so if this were a deliberate fictional account they would have had some proper men on the scene. But what you have is a genuine attempt at trying to piece together what actually happened. All I'm saying is that this is a lot better than Mohammeds magic horse or Joesph Smiths golden tablets, it's a good start.

We don't know if there was any eyewitness testimony. That, itself, could have been invented as a way to legitimize the fiction. Not that it would matter anyway, eyewitness testimony by superstitious people from 2000 years ago means nothing to me.

You will still have to provide an alternative explanation to what actually happened seeing as something apparently did. It's some kind of historical event involving a couple of hundred people in a specific area.

There's no proof that any of the Jesus stuff actually happened.

Yes but it isn't as easy to dismiss as the other examples I gave. So if you had to decide on one to have faith in this would be the one to bet on. I'm not saying it's convincing enough to prove to any non-believer that God exists in general. You do have to believe in God to begin with for this to be viable. Of course the Jews/the more philosophical pagans of the time did believe in God so wasn't too much of a problem. For an atheist there would be the barrier of naturalism you have to make your way through before you can accept this. Though you may see it as a protective shield that repels bullshit than a barrier if you're a seriously committed to your atheism. Though once you're this committed it may as well be a religious faith in it's own right.

It isn't the barrier of naturalism as much as it is the barrier of sound logic. If supernatural events were frequent and experienced by everybody, naturalism would no longer work at all as an explanation. You have to remember, we're all willing to change our minds. You just haven't provided valid reasons to do so.

Well if the universe was purposefully created and finely tuned for life this would all have to be a coincidental byproduct of some kind that just kind of all came together somehow by random chance. I'd say that in itself is stranger than any virgin birth. Virgins can easily give birth anyway you would just need to inject some sperm into them, it wouldn't count as sex if it's not a penis.

Extremely unlikely natural events aren't in the same universe of strange as the idea of a sentient and all-powerful being outside of space and time who made things exist by force of will alone.

[tokutter]

The morality you have right now is derived fully from a Christian culture and society, and ultimately from Christ himself. You don't have the moral standards of an ancient pagan Greek, you don't have the moral standards a Norse Viking, a medieval Mongol, a Zoroastrian Persian no you have Christ woven into the fabric of your very bones even if you're rejecting the God that gives this morality any real defined substance beyond the collective opinion of human minds. This is what you were raised with, this is what in yeh. And whats "in yeh" is essentially good.

my bolding
Soooooooooooo......that would make the jews immoral then.....right?????

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[Lemonvariable72]

I cannot beleive the daily telegraph would have their name attached to such bullshit, I have lost respect for them.

[CraigOfArabia]

To me faith has always meant the same thing optimism and I agree that it's pretty important for mental health. It doesn't really matter if the people who prescribe to it are delusional or dumb because, in the end, they're happy and a lot more fun to be around than those who see the world through piss-colored glasses. (or even clear ones for that matter.)

For her to say that religious people are obviously smarter than atheists is pretty silly though.

[Cyberman]

I cannot beleive the daily telegraph would have their name attached to such bullshit, I have lost respect for them.

They just want to fill space and shift newspapers. The best way to do both at once is to troll the reader base and having a resident 'controversial' blogger fits that brief perfectly. They could always run a counter-piece showcasing the other side and if they upset enough people, an apology. Either way gets them in the news. It's what passes for tabloid journalism these days.

[Lemonvariable72]

I cannot beleive the daily telegraph would have their name attached to such bullshit, I have lost respect for them.

They just want to fill space and shift newspapers. The best way to do both at once is to troll the reader base and having a resident 'controversial' blogger fits that brief perfectly. They could always run a counter-piece showcasing the other side and if they upset enough people, an apology. Either way gets them in the news. It's what passes for tabloid journalism these days.

Sigh isn't that the truth. funny atleast 1/4 of the people their are atheist and they run this crap, but not a peep against muslims. I guess its the old saying, you give a inch they take a mile. ( Imean in terms of atheist tolerance to this kind of bs)