The Paradox of Power....

[Minimalist]

No, I didn't expect much here, as usual. I'm just reminding everyone that Christ is alive and well

You're reminding us that you are a fucking moron.  But, I had never forgotten.

You make that easy.

[ronedee]

No, I didn't expect much here, as usual. I'm just reminding everyone that Christ is alive and well

You're reminding us that you are a fucking moron.  But, I had never forgotten.

You make that easy.

And as usual.... you have nothing intelligent to say.

[Cyberman]

You started it.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

And who else gets a million peeps to show up for lunch in Philly? You are in the minority of naysayers. And thinking that people will come to your  senses. Senses that are based in material worth and flawed logic. That which only takes us so far. And that isn't far enough... by a huge margin! Because you don't have "all" the answers. No person does.

You know, it's funny you should say that, because we're the ones who always have to remind Christians who come in here that no one has all the answers; it's rather a central tenet of a skeptic's point of view. We also spend a surprising amount of time explaining to people that we don't base our values on "material worth", but on evolved primate social instincts and human-made culture, just like everyone else does (though they often don't realize it). What I suspect you mean is that by rejecting your invisible SkyDaddy's rules, you think we cannot be moral. If you really stopped to consider that one for a while, you'd realize just what degree of asshole that makes you for even thinking, let alone saying, that.

As for calling us minority naysayers, as though that's some kind of slur, you should really consider a couple of things on this chart:
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/ameri...2_1_310px/

No, I didn't expect much here, as usual. I'm just reminding everyone that Christ is alive and well, and living in the hearts and minds of most people. If not in person, or religion; in concept and value.... and while all else crumbles around us. You can fantasize about the demise of the RCC, but its here to stay! Actually if they had the numbers that atheists have? I'd be worried!

Well, as you can see from the above that, while they're not all atheists but a broader category of "unaffiliated" (my favorite line in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, said by George Clooney), it means the number of people who just don't give a shit about religion in the USA has passed the number of Catholics in the USA, and your numbers are falling while ours are rising. Not that either fact has anything to do with the truth or value of either, but since you brought up the thronging crowds going to see the Pope, it's relevant.

But, its not any religion, person/pope, place or thing that keeps "the" message alive. Its Hope! And that's something no one can deny, or compete with. You can point to all the bad people who ran/run the church, and kill the messenger (literally in Jesus)..... but you can't kill the message. And that is the whole point!

No but the message can kill itself. As we learn more about our world/universe, and as the lies told by the church become more obvious, our culture will continue to move away from religious thinking. It's not that the "bad people" ran/run the church, it's that there are other sources of hope and awe besides believing in magic, now.

If we are ever to aspire to the God concept most were brought up on? Than we must first accept and follow the natural way to peace, love and harmony that leads us to life and happiness. Nothing else matters. Its basics. No matter what our opinions are of each other and thoughts of what life is about.... we ALL believe in Love. That is our ultimate purpose in life. And if there is a God revealed.... He will be found in Love.

Ignoring for a moment all the violence that has come out of the religious fanaticism of believers, since fanaticism in many non-religious things can also produce violence, I'm still rather taken aback by your comment about "peace, love and harmony that leads us to life and happiness". Do you think religion invented those concepts, or something?

God is not required in any part of that equation. Love is chemicals in our brain, an illusion, just like the sunset is just light being bent and absorbed by the atmosphere as our position earth spins away from the stationary sun. And that's okay. It's no less beautiful, knowing that it's not magical and it's definitely not Apollo riding his sun-chariot over the horizon.

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Unaffiliated line, in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I just wanted to address the knucklehead's claim about Noah's Ark.

A wooden ship of those proportions would be unable to survive a catastrophic storm lasting 40 days because of a phenomenon called "hogging". This happens when a ship breasts the waves -- as the ship tops the wave and the wave passes under the hull, the unsupported or less-supported ends, both bow and stern, sag due to gravity. Then as the ship enters the trough the ends regain buoyancy. Given enough repetitions, the ship will end up breaking apart. It wasn't until the advent of metal framework for ships in the mid 19th century that ships larger than about 350' could be built with the expectation of surviving any length of time in stormy seas.

Noah's Ark was reputedly 450' long, about 100' feet past the seaworthy mark. It would have been broken up in such a cataclysmic storm.

That story is simply false, for that reason alone.

[Cyberman]

Yeah. There's a reason Ken Ham had to build his ark on dry land.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Yeah. There's a reason Ken Ham had to build his ark on dry land.

Indeed. What's all the concrete for? Are they using Bronze Age concrete? 

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[Thumpalumpacus]

Let's see him sail it across the Atlantic in March.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Lol, I'd never seen those construction shots. How funny!

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Lol, I'd never seen those construction shots.  How funny!

What's sad is that the second one isn't even a construction shot; it's a concept-art rendering. The real thing won't be anything like that, internally (all-wood). They literally made up bullshit to suck in investors and peddle the product to the credulous.

Where have I heard of that method, before?