My House Did not have a Builder (or did it?)

[Astreja]

Your alleged "Messiah" was far from sinless.  In the Gospels he does a great number of despicable things -- Verbally abused a foreign woman, talked back to his mother (clear violation of a commandment there), destroyed a farmer's herd of pigs, assassinated a fig tree, told his disciples to commit Grand Theft Ass and Colt so that he could ride into Jerusalem in style, and told an occasional lie (again, a commandment violation).

Just a narcissistic little brat whose ignominious death at the hands of the Romans was romanticized and mythologized by cultists.

Wow. And people think Christians are brainwashed. Man.

(comes this close to falling off her chair laughing)  Hey, *you're* the one who thinks that people can come back from the dead.

Your so-called saviour, in my eyes, is either totally mythical or a completely mortal man whose followers made up some ludicrous tall tales about him.

Do us a miracle, O True Christian™.  Raise a recently-deceased famous person from the dead.  Send a mountain flying into the sea.  Do it, or STFU and GTFO.

[vulcanlogician]

...assassinated a fig tree...

Hahahaha!

[Whateverist]

I'm not sure how to quote specific lines of text in these posts, so I'll just answer in order the best I can.

That much is easy to deal with. If you want to choose specific parts of a person's post to quote, just hit "Reply" at the bottom of their post (between "Give Kudos" and "Quote". Then when that text box opens, go to the last button immediately above the text box, which looks like piece of paper with writing on it, with its upper right corner dog-eared. That will make formatting easier to understand. You'll see first a [quote= .. in front of the person's username you're responding to. After that, if they were quoting you, you'll see the same thing only with your username. Each of those will be closed by [/quote] at the end, first yours and then their own. You can then cut out everything except the part of the post you want to deal with, both from their post and from yours. For example, in replying to his post of yours, I just cut out the entire post that you had quoted from me. In similar fashion you can cut up a quote into segments to respond to separately just but copying and pasting the [quote=username part at the beginning of each part you want to quote.

Okay that is a lot to read but does that make any sense?

(I'll leave off answering the rest of your post for now as I have supper to make.)

[bennyboy]

I do have experience with God. He isn't just words on paper to me. And He isn't just some impersonal ethereal being beyond the universe that I don't know from Adam. He has spoken to me many times spiritually. And I mean very specific things, not just a feeling or something. He has confirmed and proven Himself to me. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, people to whom that hasn't happened yet.

If it's not feelings, then what is spiritual speaking? Is it linguistic? Is it a hunch that you shouldn't get on a plane, and then it crashes? Please elaborate.

[Whateverist]

I do have experience with God. He isn't just words on paper to me. And He isn't just some impersonal ethereal being beyond the universe that I don't know from Adam. He has spoken to me many times spiritually. And I mean very specific things, not just a feeling or something. He has confirmed and proven Himself to me. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, people to whom that hasn't happened yet.

If it's not feelings, then what is spiritual speaking?  Is it linguistic?  Is it a hunch that you shouldn't get on a plane, and then it crashes?  Please elaborate.

When I was posting at Reasonable Faith, someone actually went on about how he'd been riding his bike down hill, closed his eyes and took his hands off the bars.  To his mind, he'd been given all the signs he needed when he didn't crash.  Yup, okay then.

[Nay_Sayer]

Weird because cleansing with blood makes about as much sense as cleansing with any other toxic material.

It's symbolic of spiritual cleansing. When we sin, our literal blood becomes corrupted. That's why we all die. Even if someone never gets sick or died in an accident or anything, if they live to be over 100 years old and are still healthy, they will still die. We are born with a sin nature (meaning that at some point, we will sin, it is inevitable), and we are spiritually dead. And once we actually commit a sin, our sin causes us to die physically (eventually.) And if those sins are not remitted, then we will be judged for them and punished for them. 
It takes sinless blood to cleanse us spiritually, since sin is the problem in the first place. So it's a spiritual cleansing, not a physical cleansing. 
Like I said before, all those blood sacrifices were looking forward to what the Messiah would do later on. 
(And I didn't bring this topic up, by the way.)

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100% right. I say this having picked the actual right god.

RAmen

I didn't pick the right God. The right God picked me.

John 15:16
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

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Your alleged "Messiah" was far from sinless.  In the Gospels he does a great number of despicable things -- Verbally abused a foreign woman, talked back to his mother (clear violation of a commandment there), destroyed a farmer's herd of pigs, assassinated a fig tree, told his disciples to commit Grand Theft Ass and Colt so that he could ride into Jerusalem in style, and told an occasional lie (again, a commandment violation).

Just a narcissistic little brat whose ignominious death at the hands of the Romans was romanticized and mythologized by cultists.

Wow. And people think Christians are brainwashed. Man.

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Scientists don't read books based on authority: they read about what observations have already been made, what experiments have already been done, and the conclusions that other scientists have arrived at.  They then decide whether their OWN observations confirm what those others have done, and if not, they will supplant old theories with new ones.

If God is alive, then you should have some experience of God.  If your only source of knowledge about God is the ancient writings of desert-dwelling Hebrews, then God whether He exists or not is of so little import in our lives that for all practical purposes, he cannot be said to exist.

In short-- if God is real, demonstrate that He matters except as a word to fight about or to pass the money tray about.  Show me this generation's Moses or Abraham, or explain to me why God was so active 3000 years ago but seems so suspiciously like a fairy tale today.

I do have experience with God. He isn't just words on paper to me. And He isn't just some impersonal ethereal being beyond the universe that I don't know from Adam. He has spoken to me many times spiritually. And I mean very specific things, not just a feeling or something. He has confirmed and proven Himself to me. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, people to whom that hasn't happened yet. But He can and does do that. And He also confirms His word to be true. I know that isn't everyone's experience, and I'm no better than anyone else. I'm no better than a worm in my opinion. I don't deserve to know God, but I do.

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Why isn't this treatment for leprosy still used today? 

If all were sinners, how do you have sinless blood?

I don't have sinless blood. Jesus does. It's a spiritual cleansing that takes place when we believe on Him and what He did, and that He did it for us personally. We receive Him as our Lord, and our Savior, and He receives us as His children. I know it sounds foolish and ridiculous to people who don't believe it.  But once you do believe it, it's amazing what happens.  The peace you have, the assurance you have, the joy you have. It's pretty much impossible to explain to someone who doesn't believe it.

I think I found my quote in your wall of text, Your completely wrong but I and the real god forgive you.

RAmen

[GrandizerII]

There is no evidence whatsoever of macro-evolution, which has to have occurred if evolution was the mechanism by which everything came to be here the way it is now.

But if you accept evolution generally, then macro-evolution is just simply a logical extension of what you already accept.

Now if this had been happening for so long a time, millions of years worth of evolution tasking place, why is there not a plethora of evidence of intermediate species?

I've read articles and seen heaps of videos on evolution, and what I've learned is that there are all sorts of evidence for [macro]evolution. Maybe you need to watch some videos yourself? There are quite a few relevant videos on YouTube, catered to laypeople like you and me.

And I don't mean the occasional tooth or jaw bone, I mean piles of bones and other evidence. The type evidence we do see of the species we do know about.

We've got heaps of evidence for evolution in fossils, DNA, vestigial organs, geographical distributions, and so on. Way too much, honestly. That you're in denial about this doesn't make it false. If you're sincere, you will look for some videos on YouTube, and see for yourself. It's good to challenge your views and be open to discarding them in light of newly-learned evidence that contradicts them, after all.

And yes we don't need a bible to tell us that everything reproduces after it's own kind. That is what we readily observe on a daily basis all over the world, in every aspect of life. We don't observe evolution occurring on a daily basis all over the world in any aspect of life.

Evolution is happening right now, as we speak. It's a process, not some distinct event.

I didn't mean that we had to have the Bible tell us this. What I mean is, that the way it actually is, agrees with the way the Bible it would be. Evolution, however, requires that things reproduce after a different kind.

Individual reproductions don't directly yield different "kinds" (if by "kind", you mean what I suspect you mean), but that's not what is posited/required by evolution, anyway. Evolution, in the real sense, is not the same as what happens in the Pokemon games. When we talk [macro]-evolution, we are talking about populations, not individual organisms. Over time, populations do evolve from one "kind" to "another". Like I said before, macro-evolution is a logical extension of [micro]-evolution. It's not like, all of a sudden, there is some barrier in the way of further evolution. At least, we see no evidence for such a barrier. On the other hand, we have heaps of evidence for evolution. If you're going to continue to deny this in your next response to me, I will post a video here and demand you at least watch it before repeating the nonsense mantra that there's no evidence.

So our observation agrees with the Bible, and doesn't agree with evolution.

No, the observation is in harmony with evolution. You just don't understand really what evolution is.

Dogs coming from wolves is not evolution. They are the same kind.

Wrong, it is evolution. And the Bible doesn't support you here anyway. Nowhere in the Bible does it say dogs and wolves are of the same "kind". You not only don't know much about evolution, you don't even know your Bible.

You said that belief in God is just a belief. Why can't you also say that belief in evolution is also just a belief?

Because it's not just a belief.

And there has been plenty of both direct and indirect evidence of God observed here on earth, even by unbelievers.

Really? Can you give one example? I've been looking for any evidence for God for a very long time. Perhaps, you'll be the one to finally show me something.

Of course, if the unbelievers remain so, then they will explain it away by some other means. But that doesn't mean there has been no evidence.

I partially agree. Just because some people have opted to explain away the evidence doesn't mean it's necessarily not there. But the problem is that there really hasn't been any evidence for God, and that what theists think is evidence for God really isn't evidence.

As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I have seen no such extraordinary evidence for evolution, so I see no need to believe in it, just as you have seen no extraordinary evidence for God, so you see no need to believe in Him.
As I said before, when it comes to origins, whatever any of us might believe, it is just a belief.

Well, allow me to beg to differ. Go to YouTube and watch some videos. I say YouTube because there's a good chance you probably won't be bothered to read academic work. That's alright, I'm not too into academic work myself, especially if it contains jargon I have a hard time understanding.

Here's a video for you to watch:

[brewer]

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Why isn't this treatment for leprosy still used today? 

If all were sinners, how do you have sinless blood?

I don't have sinless blood. Jesus does. It's a spiritual cleansing that takes place when we believe on Him and what He did, and that He did it for us personally. We receive Him as our Lord, and our Savior, and He receives us as His children. I know it sounds foolish and ridiculous to people who don't believe it.  But once you do believe it, it's amazing what happens.  The peace you have, the assurance you have, the joy you have. It's pretty much impossible to explain to someone who doesn't believe it.

Answer the questions. jesus was not around at the time of Leviticus. The blood can't symbolize something they haven't perceived yet.

Or are you opting for the dodge?

[vulcanlogician]

He thinks the OT is all about Jesus, mh.

[WinterHold]

Atlas, here's your problem.  If you push on it, the final answer will be "I don't know!"  And you will then happily proclaim, "Aha!  You don't know, therefore God!"

This is an epic logic fail.  The fact is that the origins of the Universe are unknown, and currently unknowable.  But making shit up isn't an improvement over just not knowing.

It's not epic fail at all. Matter in fact, the truth is one, and the opinions are so many.
I believe in an opinion of the many; because to me, personally, it was the most logical. I even believe in it utterly, and subject everything in my life to it.

Now to why I think it's logical: the singularity discussed in the big bang theory, is an object containing space+time+all material in the universe. It blew up to make up the universe as we know it today. I just assume that behind that explosion, there was "something", because singularities don't blow up by their own, we don't even know if there were more singularities with infinite densities, I mean we don't even know what infinity+infinity would yield !

So, which book told us this from ancient times, in a very basic yet understandable matter?
The scenario that the Quran foretold, for example, is the same, if you simplify the language; let me prove to you. Ask yourself these questions, and you'll know why I choose what I choose:

"Did we ever hear about something "outside the limits of time=eternal" before?"

Sura 112, The Quran:
( 1 )   Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One,
( 2 )   Allah, the Eternal Refuge.
( 3 )   He neither begets nor is born,
( 4 )   Nor is there to Him any equivalent.

"Did we ever hear about a universe, being "repeated", just like the alternate theories, dictate"?

Sura 407, The Quran:
( 27 )   And it is He who begins creation; then He repeats it, and that is [even] easier for Him. To Him belongs the highest attribute in the heavens and earth. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity

Alternatives to the singularity

Various new models of what preceded and caused the Big Bang have been proposed as a result of the problems created by quantum mechanics. One model, using loop quantum gravity, aims to explain the beginnings of the Universe through a series of Big Bounces, in which quantum fluctuations cause the Universe to expand. This formulation also predicts a cyclic model of universes, with a new universe being created after an old one is destroyed, each with different physical constants.[3] Another formulation, based on M-theory and observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), states that the Universe is but one of many in a multiverse, and has budded off from another universe as a result of quantum fluctuations, as opposed to our Universe being all that exists.[5]

"Who told us that the universe would be destroyed; and a new one will begin"?

Sura 29, The Quran:
( 19 )   Have they not considered how Allah begins creation and then repeats it? Indeed that, for Allah, is easy.
( 20 )   Say, [O Muhammad], "Travel through the land and observe how He began creation. Then Allah will produce the final creation. Indeed Allah, over all things, is competent."

So if I want to represent my belief to you in modern words I would say:
"I believe there was a big bang, produced by a singularity. Soon, after who knows how much, the universe will end, and I believe all the material in it, will form into a new singularity of infinite density and the process will repeat. Billion billion billion of years; though".

That's why I believe in God. He caused the big bang. He arranged the matter, space and time to produce the universe as we know it, and that is how "fate" is created.

I just read the Quran.. somebody discussed those advanced scientific topics since ancient times.