What are your answers?

[Cyberman]

Salty expressed his her acceptance of the shape of the world, a physical fact which is at odds with the picture presented in the bible that Salty holds to be "historical and divine". Clearly it is neither, at least on this point.

Historically debateable I'd agree.

(Thank you for correcting me viz. Salty's personal pronoun. Very much obliged.)

It's also debatable regarding its divine nature, unless you concede the point that it's not at all divine. The descriptions of the universe as presented in the bible are, in many if not all cases, demonstrably false, and any that are not false would not be anything unknown to the primitive culture that spawned it. The Earth is not flat, nor could it ever rest upon pillars; stars are not lamps hanging from the sky that can be shaken loose and fall to Earth; the Moon is not a light; the sky does not have windows that can open to let the rain through; and so on. Any divine source for these revelations would know how laughably wrong such things are. So either the biblical accounts are not divinely revealed or there lies some other motive for this divine source to reveal them in such a silly way.

I note in passing that the more outlandish claims in the biblical accounts are indistinguishable from similar stories in other, older mythologies. It's almost as if it's all made up by humans guessing about the nature of the world in which they lived, isn't it?

[Violet]

Are you guys arguing with my brother over the possibility of Christians not being crazy again?

* Violet sighs.

He's right But your silliness is amusing ^_^

[fr0d0]

* Metaphysical Naturalism is philosophical worldview and belief system that there is nothing but natural elements, principles and relations of the kind that can be studied by the sciences.

A belief system indeed, that relies on faith of something unproven. Unlike faith in God which is based upon reason.

Any theory that cannot be scientifically verified is probably wrong.

Irrelevant. Science can only test what falls within it's remit.

It's also debatable regarding its divine nature, unless you concede the point that it's not at all divine. The descriptions of the universe as presented in the bible are, in many if not all cases, demonstrably false

You are joining two very different subjects here, and stating that one is wrong because it fails to meets the criteria of the other.

Flat earth theory is certainly not biblical. Indeed the aincient near easteners would find your assumptions amusingly ignorant. They understood the message, because it was their way of describing the divine, where you are faltering trying to understand it literally. that's why we have to look so intensely at context to derive the original meaning.

I note in passing that the more outlandish claims in the biblical accounts are indistinguishable from similar stories in other, older mythologies.

Context.

[Cyberman]

Ah. So the references need to be taken in context. There is some context in which references such as "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night", or "the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them", or "the circle of the earth [with] heavens like a curtain ... like a tent to live in", or "a firmament [heaven] in the midst of the waters [to] divide the waters [under the firmament] from the waters [above the firmament]" make sense.

Remember, all I am attempting to do here is point out that references such as these do not fit in a document held to be historical and/or divine - because they make assertions about the universe that resemble nothing outside of the document itself. Thus, beyond a rather quaint literary interest, said references and other similar ones are neither historical nor divine and can be filed away with similar myths from other cultures. They have no more validity or connection with reality than Nut, the Egyptian Sky Goddess.

There's only so many times I'm going to keep riding the magic roundabout here. I've presented - yet again - the case I set out to make and I leave it to others to decide if I succeeded. Whether the points raised are addressed or not is beyond my concern.

[Minimalist]

God revealed nothing beyond the understanding of the physical world at the time.

Gee, Frods...how odd that an alleged 'god' could not do better than the understanding of ignorant goat herders.

If I accepted gods I would expect more from them.

[5thHorseman]

Op:


1) god has not shown himself. Ever.
If he did show up tomorrow yes I would believe, in a god. NOT christianity. They are very different things.

2) Do we hate god. NO you ignorant tool. We do NOT believe in a god. And yes I hate organized religion.

3) I don't hate Jesus. I doubt he ever existed.

4) Peter Hitchens. Christophers brother, once atheist now a Christian conservative (they go hand in hand). How people get from atheism to Christianity is fucking ludicrous. Firstly you believe in no gods. Then you believe become a bible thumper. I don't get that.

5) I'm a genuine skeptic. I think faith is quite pathetic and weak. (not a slight to theists, just my opinion) believing something that's unbelievable IMO is stupidity at it's finest.

6) I don't hate individual religious people, so long as they don't throw their stories at me. This site has some excellent theists like Rayaan and frodo. I hate people like the pope and Jerry falwell. They deserve my insults as they are horrible people who deserve criticism and mockery for their outdated often homophobic sometimes rascist beliefs, and I'll do my upmost to shove my beliefs up their arses.

Also I am very against religion and politics mixing, I think religion should stay in churches and peoples houses, the religious political leaders of the world are a danger.

George W Bush (gods told me)
Ahmedinajad
T Blair (god watching over my shoulder)
Israel
Palestine

All of those places/people get the same treatment from me.

[fr0d0]

Hey Stimbo

For an answer to those questions you need to reference the source I cited, otherwise you are offerring a contradiction without confronting the information. I promise you that your questions are answered fully there.

This book [the bible] wasn't written by God, or in language that humans of the time would not understand, because the message was complete without furthering their knowledge. Yes we have their frame of reference... primitive as it might have been... but that doesn't matter at all... because it's the message we're interested in. The context we need to understand.

The victorians would have told it differently, as would every other age and culture. If we wrote it today our distant decendants would find it ridicuous.
If an exactly correct scientific answer by [every] current standard was the subject, then we might have some reason to be skeptical. But as the knowledge of the culture relating the information is irrelevant to the subject, we can't dismiss the subject on their lack of magical skills of premonition.

[The Grand Nudger]

Actually most of the structural foundations of language (even words like atoms) and knowledge required to convey an idea such as "the big bang" we're well known by the time any of the NT was written. God could have cleared up creation quite nicely. Actually it wouldn't have been difficult to communicate the idea in the bronze age either. But you know god, doesn't like to show his hand before the chips are in. If the message were complete there would be 1, count em, 1 christian denomination. There are a few more than that. All this talk about how atheists like to constrain god within arbitrary or contradictory limits and here you are stating that his inability to convey a message was due to what? The inability of his creation to understand it, bzzzt, wrong. At the same time you claim that we could not possibly have understood something like "way back in the day, there was a tremendous fucking explosion" we are apparently able to understand the great cosmic message of god? Bullshit.

At least there was ounce of sense in your post. The bible wasn't written by god. You know what they call it when someone tells a story differently every time you ask? A lie. So, if god's going to give different answers depending on who's asking and when, I'm gonna go ahead and put the bullshit blanket over the entire story because there's no god damned way to know which version is true, and when he's just fucking with us. What god are you arguing for here? Loki?

Does your bible not contain "magical skills of premonition"? The culture that creates and defines a myth is unbelievably (almost exclusively) relevant to any discussion about that myth. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that those "irrelevant things" are the ones that require a wave of the hand because you are uncomfortable with your lack of satisfactory response, and understand the implications of the statement.

"Why does religious mythology contain only the knowledge of any given culture within it?"-Because it was written by men, without the aide or communication of any god, despite repeated claims to the contrary and threats of eternal damnation to those who would doubt these claims. Unless you have evidence to the contrary. Or perhaps you wish to propose a god who just didn't know this sort of stuff, or would screw with us to see how long we'll believe garbage?

Something tells me that you're unwilling to re-translate the entire text as metaphor (and that's what you'd have to do to make it plausible). So don't waste my time with "genesis isn't material creation". Fine, that's your belief, I agree. Problem is we're only three pages into the text and your arm would fall off before you could wave the rest of the garbage away. A careful reading and interpretation of Betty Crockers Good Home Cooking can offer an identical narrative to the bible, and that is why I can't take you seriously when you speak. If your text can say 38,000 different things (depending, apparently, on time and the person reading it) then it doesn't say anything at all. I can't even begin to describe how absurd your responses have been, from day one to now.

So what, exactly, is the message of god Frodo?

[IATIA]

1. Are athiests just wounded people, upset that God hasn't shown himself to them in a way they deem acceptable? Meaning, if he suddenly appeared you would believe?

There is no god to show. There is no acceptable way to show me.

2. Do athiests hate God or do they hate organized religion in general?

Cannot hate what does not exist. Organized religion however, is the bane of humanity.

3. Why does it seem like athiests hate Jesus more than anyone, what do you think of Jesus?

I do not perceive any 'hate' of jesus. Just that he was nothing but a man.

4. Do any of you know athiests that have converted to another religion, did you feel swayed by their conversion?

Only one person and they are on this site, but I do not believe this person was evertruly an atheist.

5. Are you an athiest based on your research of many of the top religions, or does your athiesm come from a personal experience where you feel that God didn't show up like he should have?

I was raised a catholic, but never believed in a god. I tried and found that everything about it was logically incoherent with my worldview.

6. Since athiests don't believe in God and dislike when people force God on them, why do they force their negative and hateful opinions on Christians (and other religions) through mockery and verbal assault?

Why do they force their crap on us? If they want to believe in caveman superstitions from a collection of fairy tales put together in 400 some A.D., as long as it does not interfere with my life, have at it. The problem is that they feel they need to save us from ourselves and want to force their superstitions into our laws, our schools, our politics, our lives. As for "negative and hateful", see what kind of response you regularly get by not 'blessing' someone after a sneeze. Another is a family/friends get together and pick an atheist to say grace. One definitely sees some negativity from the xtians then. My response is "How very xtian of you. Thanks".

[Minimalist]

why do they force their negative and hateful opinions on Christians

I don't know...why ARE you here? If I were standing on your doorstep handing you a copy of FUCK JESUS magazine you might have a basis to complain.


But when you show up on an Atheist message board sprinkling jesus dust you really should expect to get shit on.

Just remember...if you weren't here you would not be subject to those negative and hateful opinions which apparently bother you so much.

Next time a couple of religious shitwits ring my doorbell I may have to let them have it.