A Former Atheist

[Theoretical Skeptic]

The  "real Bible?" You mean the one that says in the first chapter of Genesis that god created the grass and the trees before he created the sun and the moon?   You mean the one that shows fathers how to sell their daughters into sexual slavery (Exodus 21:7-11)?

I find that people who don't believe the Bible know a lot more about it and about Christian history than those who do believe it.

Leaving the church because you're disgusted at fellow Christians doesn't make you an atheist. To be an atheist, you have to be strong enough to stop lying to yourself about what is clearly truth and reality.  You have to be strong enough to not settle for comfortable answers and convoluted explanations.

You, uh . . . you might want to check out my new thread on the Christian forum. The Real Bible: Genesis Chapter 1. 

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Yup... and?

And I don't think I have done what you said I did. I asked him if he celebrated Christmas with his children, he said he did with a son, I then gave him my take on Christmas saying he most likely celebrated it in the usual materialistic fashion. I then went on a rant on atheism due to the similar rants I have gotten on theism and the doubts that I was an atheist like I said I was. I stand by that and don't see why I would hesitate to.  

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Okay. Let me ask you a simple question. What is the soul? Is it immortal, meaning does it die?

Perhaps you could provide some evidence of this thing you call a soul before asking our thoughts on it.

Sure. According to the Bible the soul is the blood or the life of any breathing creature. It comes from an Hebrew root word which literally means "breather." 

"The concept of immortality is a product of Greek thinking, whereas the hope of a resurrection belongs to Jewish thought. . . . Following Alexander’s conquests Judaism gradually absorbed Greek concepts." - Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Bible (Valence, France; 1935), edited by Alexandre Westphal, Volume 2, page 557. 

Plato quoting Socrates: "The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods." - Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A. 

"The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture." The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Volume VI, page 564. 

[Jenny A]

Actually, if you rotate the rest of the solar system around the earth's axis of rotation, it could be made to appear as if the sun stood still without stopping the rotation of the earth.

Very clever.  But I do wonder about what it would do to the climate if just one portion of the earth faced the sun for more than a day.  Could get pretty damn hot and pretty damn cold depending on where you were standing.  And the resulting weather if you heated up one side but not the other might be catastrophic pretty quickly. 

Also the sun and the solar system would have to travel awful fast to make the trip.  The sun is 92,960,000 miles from earth so the circumference of a circle made by it around the earth would be 5.84×108 (584,000,000).  Divided by 24 that would be
24,333,333 miles per hour.  The speed of light is only 670,616,629 mph.   So that would have the sun traveling at a little over 3% of the speed of light. 

And then there's the gravitational problem.  The only reason the earth isn't falling into the sun is that it's traveling faster than it's falling, which is to say we are in orbit.  Should the sun travel around us, we'd fall in.

Setting all of that aside, you don't think the people who got a full day of night would notice?  People paid close attention to the stars and they would certainly look like dawn should come but it wouldn't.  And don't you think the people living in the perpetual sunset or perpetual sunrise portions of the world would notice time appearing to stand still?  But no one did.

So no, I don't think the bible saying the sun stopped is sufficient evidence to consider the idea that it might have.

[rexbeccarox]

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Yup... and?

And I don't think I have done what you said I did. I asked him if he celebrated Christmas with his children, he said he did with a son, I then gave him my take on Christmas saying he most likely celebrated it in the usual materialistic fashion. I then went on a rant on atheism due to the similar rants I have gotten on theism and the doubts that I was an atheist like I said I was. I stand by that and don't see why I would hesitate to.  

What did I say you did?  I said you built straw men.  I said you misrepresented him.  I've got news for you: you did both... like, 100%.  You assigned a shit-ton of baggage, which you sort-of admitted, that didn't even apply to anything he said. You were completely dishonest in your representation of him.  The fact that you're fighting so readily against your own words tells me everything I need to know.  If you can't even be honest with yourself, how are any of us supposed to take you at all seriously?

[Thumpalumpacus]

That whooshing sound is what's left of your credibility going straight down the shitter.

See, you just have to ask the right questions, and suddenly - clarity.

Indeed. I don't think it will be doing him any favors here, though.

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The question then would be:

Why do you put more weight in one book than in all the scientific knowledge accumulated by the brightest minds in the last 2000 years? 

Let me see. How to answer that. First of all, the origins of science and education didn't get their start in the secular world, but rather in the religious.

Nonsense. Science started when the first guy discovered tool-making.

Secondly, I can name respected scientists in many fields who not only not believe in evolution, but also teach the Bible in their spare time. So there may be some disagreement with current science and the Bible regarding the flood and evolution but there isn't as much disagreement as you might suspect. Remember, science can't test the supernatural so they have no authority to state a position on it, really.

A flood is not supernatural.  A flood leaves evidence.  And whether a scientist has religious faith is irrelevant to the truth of religion.  That is fallacious argumentation from authority, and should be disregarded.

Growing up in public schools in the 1970's and 1980's as an unbeliever my science teachers were atheist and most of what they told me, now obsolete science peppered with what I now know was Biblical ignorance was touted as unchangeable fact. Knowledge grows, evolves, changes. Facts don't. Tomorrow's science will no doubt negate the science of today.

Unfortunately for your point, the Bible is both bereft of facts and superceded in knowledge.

Hundreds of years ago the current science thought that night and day were caused by vapors, from the sky in the day and from the ground at night while the Bible had said thousands of years ago that night and day were due to the luminaries. The hydrologic cycle from the Bible and hygienic laws from the Bible predated science, the latter during Moses' time were only realized in the last 150 years. Until then a physician would go from the morgue to the birthing table without so much as washing their hands. The spherical shape of the earth was explained by the Bible hundreds of years before science concluded it.

The very fact that science is self-correcting makes it more credible than the idea that a tribe of illiterate, unknowledgeable goatherders two thousand years ago landed upon an unchangeable truth.

And no, the Bible doesn't describe the Earth as a sphere.  Indeed, it refers to the "corners of the Earth". What sphere has corners?

My family and friends are mostly atheists, and like myself at the time, they don't believe everything science dictates to them. None of them that I know believe in evolution. We thought of it as bullshit, like the American public school's teaching of myth and legends, propaganda and outright lies in the guise of historical fact.

Birds of a feather flock together -- ignorant birds, in this case.

[Pyrrho]

See, you just have to ask the right questions, and suddenly - clarity.

Indeed. Be advised, clarity is a double-edged sword. I don't think it will be doing you any favors here.

On the contrary, it does do one a favor by telling one exactly how seriously to take someone's posts.  In this case, Alex K learned not to take anything from that person seriously.  It is useful for the rest of us in precisely the same way.

[Theoretical Skeptic]

Indeed. Be advised, clarity is a double-edged sword. I don't think it will be doing you any favors here.

On the contrary, it does do one a favor by telling one exactly how seriously to take someone's posts.  In this case, Alex K learned not to take anything from that person seriously.  It is useful for the rest of us in precisely the same way.

How fortunate for the uninformed skeptic who hasn't an argument, eh? 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Atheists seem to be obsessed with the supernatural. God doesn't necessarily imply the supernatural, it implies might or veneration. Moses, Jesus, Tammuz, and the Judges of Israel were called gods and were men and women. Mortal.

So, you're going to equivocate the meaning of the word "god". Okay.

I'm not defending slavery. I'm pointing out that slavery existed during the times of the Bible, it differs from more recent versions of slavery and it was invented by men, not gods. In doing so I most certainly am not condoning slavery, but rather, suggesting there are more insidious forms of slavery we are all subjected to today.

Your holy book accepts slavery as moral. That was my point, since you clearly missed it.

A typical asshole, I suppose, but I don't think it is okay by any means to own another human being.

You'd better take that up with the god you claim to worship, then. He clearly thinks otherwise.

But yeah, typical, run of the mill apologist asshole.  Have you met Drich?

I don't need to speak directly to him, it was all written down long before I got here.

... by fallible men, as you yourself have taken pains to point out.

Everyone has faith. You need to be more specific in referencing what it is you have no faith in.

No, I don't have faith.  You speak for yourself, I'll speak for myself, and this conversation will go just fine.

In a sense I agree with the latter part of this statement. Accurate knowledge about God and the Bible is a personal responsibility - ultimately, but we are having a discussion here. You state your position and I state mine. Beyond that I don't expect you to be concerned about my opinions on the subject. But you, to a greater or lesser extent, like most posters here, seem pretty concerned with beliefs on God and religion.

 I'm answering your silly points.  I'm also concerned with good music, good food, and good lovin'.  When you want to demonstrate your depth of intellect by turning to other subjects, we can have those conversations. Buyt assuming I care about your god any more than the five minutes it takes to rebut your inane ramblings, well, you're lending yourself too much gravitas. Your god doesn't exist, and if you fell off the world tomorrow, I would not know nor care.

The point is, you most likely instilled in your young son some materialistic fantasy based upon mythology, customs and tradition that you knew wasn't true but presented as truth to your impressionable child in order to mislead, and control him and yet you have a big problem with anyone else incorporating these alleged tenets.

In that case you'd be wrong, because his mother was a Catholic. We both agreed to not engage in programming, but to not lie about our own beliefs, or lack thereof. I respect my own son's mind, have let him develop as himself because I'm not concerned with controlling his thoughts, and quite frankly, I think you're being a right cunt assuming horseshit like this about my family; this only reinforces my initial impression of you as a bullshitter who talks more than he knows.

As for what I "know" is or isn't true, you seem to have a lot of insight.  Why don't you continue with your speculations for my amusement?

Atheism is hypocritical, nonsensical, uninformed antiquated polemic pontification. Social and political frustration primarily expressed poorly by failed Christians with a Utopian quasi scientific ideology equally uninformed and hinged upon the failed metaphysical experiment of evolution. And you, I suspect, think that is original and clever. It isn't, so why not be more tolerant of other people's paradigm?

I'm tolerant of paradigms that don't infringe upon my way of life.  The problem with you Christians is that while you don't know how to shut the fuck up, you neither know how to use reason to make a point.   

I think you're lying about having been an atheist who has converted, because your insights are so pathetically banal. You are so gullible that you were "converted" by reading the Bible, a book with so many inaccuracies that you yourself have pointedly admitted that you don't regard it as entirely true, but yet you come here to espouse its "truth".  

Pardon me while I think that you're so full of shit your eyes are brown.

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I'm on my phone and looking up the reference is unwieldy so I'll get to it later tonight ... but I don't think you're correct about Jubilee liberation, Hash.

Thanks for the heads-up. It's in Leviticus chap. 25. I was correct and wrong both. Jubilee came every 50 years, not 7 like I thought. Although there was a 7 x 7 + 1 computation and the 7-year subdivisions may have been of importance, as "agricultural sabbaticals" of some sort. Israelites in servitude went free at the jubilee (Lev. 25:40), but foreigners did not. 50% isn't a bad score when I haven't read this stuff in a quarter century.  

Leviticus 25:44 -46:

44 " 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 

45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 
46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Clearly, the Jubilee was limited in scope, as foreigners and their children could be enslaved for life. Leviticus goes on to state that those slaves may buy their redemption, which is hardly liberation.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Indeed. Be advised, clarity is a double-edged sword. I don't think it will be doing you any favors here.

On the contrary, it does do one a favor by telling one exactly how seriously to take someone's posts.  In this case, Alex K learned not to take anything from that person seriously.  It is useful for the rest of us in precisely the same way.

You quoted me before I edited my post reflecting the poster. I had thought it was the banned OP posting what I quoted at first.

I blame a ten-hour work day dealing with a capacity crowd at the Preserve.

The cutting edge of clarity lacerates bullshit artists. I think we all agree that Alex K is not near that category.

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On the contrary, it does do one a favor by telling one exactly how seriously to take someone's posts.  In this case, Alex K learned not to take anything from that person seriously.  It is useful for the rest of us in precisely the same way.

How fortunate for the uninformed skeptic who hasn't an argument, eh? 

Yo, I know you're banned -- the mods might let you talk again soon, chill, homey -- but you haven't rebutted one point I've made, so your point here is also double-edged, dumbfuck.

If you're allowed back, I might treat you more seriously if you take the time to answer the points I've made, instead of pursuing personal attacks at the expense of thoughtful posting.

Then again, I may simply give you  a dose of your own medicine, and limit myself to making uncharitable assumptions about your parental teaching, assuming you're old enough to sire a child.

[Alex K]

I think we should all agree that I am not a cutting edge lactating bull sitter. But I have other qualities.

[Rhondazvous]

Your way, the Bible is still wrong, because the sun would be moving, not standing still.

The story line is that the guy made the daylight last longer by praying for the sun and the moon to stand still. This gives credence to the idea that the sun and moon revolve around the Earth, which is exactly how the cosmos would look to an Earth-bound naked eye.  The deity had a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his divine omniscience and he blew it.

The church has known for over 500 years that the biblical creation story bears not the slightest resemblance to the universe we live in. Yet, the Christian lie persists because there are too many people making too much money to let it die.

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The  "real Bible?" You mean the one that says in the first chapter of Genesis that god created the grass and the trees before he created the sun and the moon?   You mean the one that shows fathers how to sell their daughters into sexual slavery (Exodus 21:7-11)?

I find that people who don't believe the Bible know a lot more about it and about Christian history than those who do believe it.

Leaving the church because you're disgusted at fellow Christians doesn't make you an atheist. To be an atheist, you have to be strong enough to stop lying to yourself about what is clearly truth and reality.  You have to be strong enough to not settle for comfortable answers and convoluted explanations.

You, uh . . . you might want to check out my new thread on the Christian forum. The Real Bible: Genesis Chapter 1. 

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No, don't try to do a Mitt Romney on me. Address the points I made, if you can.