Do you believe in God(s)?

[SlappyMcGee]

The difference between us (Christians) and you (atheists) is that you're choosing not to see the proof, per se, of God's existence, and therefore honestly believing that we're basing our beliefs on, as you say, word of mouth.

First of all, the Bible is just about the same right now as it was several hundred years ago, when the KJV first came out.

The fact that you say there's no proof for God's existence mystifies me. You've all heard the analogies of a designer in nature a thousand times, but you still can't walk outside, look at nature, and think that it all happened by chance, unless you're unwilling or afraid to hold that view, or you're just deluding yourself into believing it.
You'll know about scientists in high-ranking fields who have been converted to Christianity. The Case For a Creator by Lee Strobel entails a few little details about the origin of the universe. Apparently gravity, the weakest attracting force in the galaxy, is an extremely sensitive instrument. That is, if you built a ruler that measured in standard inches, but which spanned the length of the known universe, and set the strength of gravity to one of the inch marks, moving it to the left or the right one inch would prevent the formation of planets, stars, etc.
Another point is that one obscure little value which I don't know much about: that is, the original space-phase volume (which is allegedly scientifically vital to the Big Bang) was sensitive, during formation, to a factor of one in 10^150, which is more than the number of particles in the known universe. It's like if you tiled the surface of all the planets in several galaxies with one-inch tiles then was allowed to pick up one, that one would have the instructions to a self-supporting universe written on the underside.

Why? Why would anyone do that? "The Universal Lottery! The prize: a habitable universe which supports sapient life! The odds: 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000..."

incluye, we know about very little outside of Earth. No matter what you stack the odds of creation, if there are an infinite number of oppurtunites for Earth as we know it to be created (which there are, for if it were not created in exactly this way at one oppurtunity, the fact that there is any likelihood of it being created means that it will eventually be created in an infinite length of time). What I'm trying to say by this is, we have no idea how many false starts the universe had before they got it right, because with that slim chance, we might have been the first attempt (a term I use loosely because my case is arguing that nobody actually attempted it)or we might have been the two billionth trillionth.

Besides, the fact that it was unlikely that nature as we know it was created does not indicate that there is a God. It can only work as a proof if you already believe in God. Example: You believe in God, and you hear that it was extremely unlikely the universe would be created. Airgo, God must have been a factor. Alternate Example: I do not believe in God, and I hear that it was extremely unlikely that the universe would be created. Phew, we were the "lucky" ones, then. But I am reaffirmed that God was not involved in creation, since science has proven it could have happened without him.

[otters]

I do not believe in God, and I hear that it was extremely unlikely that the universe would be created. Phew, we were the "lucky" ones, then. But I am reaffirmed that God was not involved in creation, since science has proven it could have happened without him.

"I hear it was extremely unlikely that the universe would be created...but I am reaffirmed...science has proven it could have happened without him."

...?

or we might have been the two billionth trillionth.

How many tries do you think the universe has had?

Also.

the fact that there is any likelihood of it being created means that it will eventually be created in an infinite length of time

That's logical, but theoretical. Unfortunately, however, we have not had an infinite length of time for the universe to try and get it right: only about thirteen billion years, which, although being a long time, pales next to the tries it would have to make to get itself a life-supporting planet.

It can only work as a proof if you already believe in God.

This is true. However, it's also good for getting you weird looks when you tell people that you believe that Earth could have existed by chance.

[SlappyMcGee]

I do not believe in God, and I hear that it was extremely unlikely that the universe would be created. Phew, we were the "lucky" ones, then. But I am reaffirmed that God was not involved in creation, since science has proven it could have happened without him.

"I hear it was extremely unlikely that the universe would be created...but I am reaffirmed...science has proven it could have happened without him."

...?

The point I'm trying to make here, is that there was still some ridiculous statistical chance that the world could be created. If we could not explain the creation of the world with science, I might be more inclined to believe in some Godly influence. On the other hand, your own post acknowledges that the world might have been created even without the so-called Hand of God.

Anyway, none of that addresses that fact that what you said still wasn't any legitimate proof that God exists, you merely pointed out a statistic that exists in science. It is not a reason to believe; it is a reason to disbelieve the science in place. You need to face facts and realize that your belief system genuinely is not based anywhere in fact.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Tsukatu, just out of curiosity, what do you think of me being a Christian? (although I really need to follow it more closely, that's unrelated here) Despite your obvious hatred of Christianity and its history, you've never really been hostile towards me about it. Or maybe this is because I really don't like debating religion and haven't really talked about it with you at length compared to some others.

What I'm not okay with is people being Christian. As for the people themselves, I'm a very laidback sort of person and can make friends with just about anyone (although things get sticky if there is nothing more to someone than their religion *cough*acaddict). Anyone who respects my right to my own beliefs (or lackthereof) gets that same respect in kind; I don't start arguments out of the blue. If someone wants to talk or muse, I've been completely capable of keeping things completely civil and non-argumentative as well. I think a lot of what some of the members here think of me comes from how they see me act in Debate and thinking that that's what I'm like outside of that sort of context.
So really, dude, I have no problems with you at all. If your religion isn't interfering with my world (you're not threatening me, you don't move to the US and vote solely on religious beliefs, etc.), then the only think I think of you being a Christian is that I think it's unfortunate, because I sincerely believe that Christianity, like just about any religion, does more harm than good, and I don't like seeing people I get along with in that situation.
Ultimately, if your religion isn't affecting me, you can believe whatever you want. I'll comment on it if you ask me to, but I probably won't bring it up on my own. And for those people who really want a no-holds-barred hashing out of why I have the opinions I do, I can provide that also, because I know what I believe and why I believe it.

But that's the conflict; because you've never experienced the Christian walk and dismiss the Bible as a bunch of fairy tales, you can't understand why we stand behind what we do.

Firstly, I was a Russian Orthodox Christian before I started the transition toward what I am now. And secondly, I hope to High goddamn Heaven that the Bible is indeed a farce, and that the world at large never subscribes its teachings. It is one evil fucking book.

I'll admit, I really don't have an answer for you about the crusades and the witch burnings and the other acts of murder committed in God's name. I can tell you that they were being misled. And, despite some of them being clergymen and adamant church-goers, they were still human.

If the reasons for these things were the imperfections of humans, doesn't it make you wonder why the worst of evils is committed so much more regularly by religious people rallied by religious organizations under the banner of their religion? Or why even the ones that didn't have overtly religious reasons effectively set up their own pseudo-religions in which they were worshipped as a god would be (Mao being the prime example)?

I'm still human. incluye, Obby, macaddict - humans. We aren't Jesus; we still succumb to sin. We're just trying to change our old path to became a new creation and strive to live that way.
...
It's changed my life, how I view people (for the most part), and my general attitude.

As I said earlier, I just don't believe Christianity is the best way to do that. I know you're all human, and I'm a human too, with my own limitations and short-comings. But to me, Christianity is the crazy homeopathic remedy that just makes the wound worse, even if it does numb the pain. And now I'll have to ask you to endure a short rant explaining this...
My general view of life is very much like the scientific theory of entropy. The extremely abridged version: Compared to a human, the universe has a completely alien view of what is best; it will naturally move toward a state that is different from your best interests (not always against your best interests, but usually so). To impose some order, you need to put in energy of your own. For this reason, you should only ever expect good results to come from the things you work at. If luck goes your way, fine, that can happen, but you should recognize that it was a fluke. The problem with this is that people don't like work, and they often jump at any easy way out. I'm not playing the blame game here -- I do this all the time, just as I expect of any normal person.
So the way I deal with my problems is by putting effort into fixing them. I used to be pretty out of shape (and still am, a bit), so I started eating healthy and working out. I needed a job in the field of my interest but my classes weren't teaching me useful skills, so I taught myself those skills instead of lounging around and playing video games all day like my dorm mates did. I didn't have many friends in my hometown when I came back from college, but even though I was uncomfortable doing it, I threw myself into a few social scenes. I made a lot of mistakes and gave some people a bad impression, but I did get some very close friends that I hang out with regularly today. It's all work, and most of it sucks, but it solves the problem.
A Christian believes that there is an omnipotent being who loves him and wants the best for him. You can really go one of a few ways: 1) you believe that your well-being is in God's hands, and because He loves you, He has already planned a life for you that despite some pitfalls eventually turns out just peachy-keen; 2) you believe that God will throw challenges at you that He expects you to overcome with effort, and possibly (*stifled laughter*) faith; 3) you have any belief whatsoever in the efficacy of prayer.
To start off, #3 doesn't go with either of the first two. If God already has a plan, there's no point in praying. Prayer is defined by The Devil's Dictionary as "asking that the laws of the universe be annulled on the behalf of a single petitioner who is confessedly unworthy." Praying for some change or some event to happen is to presume greater wisdom than God. Or if you're of the #2 camp, you're asking God for help in something He knows you can handle yourself; you're cheating, you're whining, and you're telling God that He was wrong about your capabilities. Besides which, prayer fills the part of our minds that gives us satisfaction in knowing we worked at a problem, which is a bad when you consider that prayer doesn't actually accomplish a damned thing. When you pray for the victims of a natural disaster, or for the poor to find food, you feel like you've actually done something and your desire to help is satisfied.
#1 gives you the belief that everything will be fine in the end despite the hardships that come. This takes away the drive to work for anything yourself, because you think it's in the hands of an all-powerful being who loves you. And when it's all over, all the Earthly knowledge and skills you'd have picked up from your own efforts are going to be meaningless in Heaven. Just go with the flow and go where God wills you to go. Most people I meet who believe this have minimum-wage jobs, struggle with alcoholism, and love smoking pot. I can only imagine they'll die without having accomplished anything, believing that they lived a meaningful life.
And lastly, #2 is barely different from the secular approach to life I live by, and God is such a small part of it that He can effectively be thrown out of the picture and you wouldn't lose anything. If you believe that God isn't going to bail you out and it's on you to make your life work, then clearly you shouldn't expect any interference in your life from God. Sometimes God will test your faith while things just don't go my way, and sometimes God will bless you while I have some good luck by some crazy random happenstance. We'll respond to the circumstances of life in the same way. So the question is, why is it at all meaningful that God is the one who put you into a world like this, where you have to work for your success? It's just so arbitrary and pointless. And besides that, it comes hand-in-hand with the Problem of Evil, Free Will, and other fun inconsistencies that I'm not going to get into right now.

Although if you actually want to get accurate, then replace every instance of the word "Christianity" above with "epistemological hedonism." Besides coming with tales of magical talking snakes and some terrifying stories of people committing war crimes in the name of God, you also have orders to hate and kill an astoundingly large variety of people. I don't see the majority of Christians actually following any Christian doctrine (and thank God for that!). So if you're going to attribute a healthy, tolerant lifestyle to something supernatural, at the very least call it Deism or your own spirituality or something, but not Christianity. You're not a Christian, because no one in their right mind could possibly be an actual Christian. What we have instead is a rebranding of a New Age movement that idealizes some hippie named Jesus (but who clearly wasn't the Jesus of Nazareth of the New Testament; that dude was just as crazy as his alleged father). The word "Christian" has completely lost its original meaning, because this new Christianity has nothing in common with its roots, and is obviously not based in the slightest on the Bible.
...which, if I may say so, is a perfect segue into:

Really, I just ask you to not judge us - the "modern" Christians, if you will - for some crazy garbage that happened erroneously in the past.

I obviously can't pin the same beliefs of Christianity on your Christianity v2.0, but the fact does remain that it's a religion, and it's the religious mindset that allows that "crazy garbage" to happen. You're a cool dude and all, but so long as you believe that it's okay to just believe things for no reason, I will be wary of your religious beliefs interfering negatively with my life. "Faith" is making a virtue out of not thinking, of, in fact, refusing to think, and that will never be something that sits well with me.

In the end, does this affect our relationships with people? Okay, if a Christian girl wants to date an atheist and after a few months the boyfriend brings up sex as part of their conversations, there are going to be potholes. There will also be bumps with excessive swearing, pornography, and the usual list of suspects. But I'm not going to say no to a bunch of guys who want to grab some drinks and play pool on a Friday night because I could be exposed to their "atheist" lifestyles.

Good for you!
I really do mean that; it wasn't sarcasm. This is the sort of attitude I really wish more people would have -- your beliefs are something personal, and you're secure enough to be (or should I say not insecure enough to avoid) mingling with people of different beliefs without problems. Tolerance is progressive.
Like I said, if you and I were just hanging out, I really doubt that there would be any problems.

[Studebacher Hoch]

But that's the conflict; because you've never experienced the Christian walk and dismiss the Bible as a bunch of fairy tales, you can't understand why we stand behind what we do. It's changed my life, how I view people (for the most part), and my general attitude.

The conflict stems from the fact that any free-thinking, intellectual person's natural reaction to somone who leads their entire life based around some sheepish belief is disdain. The feeling you get, what you describe as God, is merely what it feels like to be integrated into a group of people who think alike; to be totally accepted. It's part of our biology - naturally, we desire to be around people like us. This explains why people of all religious or idealogical demnominations around the group feel the same thing you do.

The fact that you say there's no proof for God's existence mystifies me. You've all heard the analogies of a designer in nature a thousand times, but you still can't walk outside, look at nature, and think that it all happened by chance, unless you're unwilling or afraid to hold that view, or you're just deluding yourself into believing it.

If we judge your god based on nature, your god is a dumbass. Humans, while we have some very complex and impressive things, have some equally retarded things that even the most dense of community college drop-outs wouldn't overlook, let alone an intelligent designer. We eat, breath, and talk through the same hole. A sewege system runs through an entertainment complex. Birth defects. The mere forces of gravity are enough to damage our bodies to the point of being useless after a mere 70-80 years. Human beings are far from the perfect image of god you'd expect from someone supposedly omniscient and all knowing.

Don't forget about nature. God obviously had very poor foresight, or else he meant very poorly for us. In the entire universe, there is 1/3rd of a tiny, infinitely small ball of dirt where we won't die instantly. And that ball of dirt is itself on a collision course with, oh, I don't know, the Andromeda galaxy? What kind of intelligent designer with unlimited power could overlook that.

So we're left with two conclusions. Your god is not omniscient, which makes him a lier on par with the Devil. Or your god does not exist, and your religious beliefs are easily explained away by the simplest of logic.

[Tanner]

The conflict stems from the fact that any free-thinking, intellectual person's natural reaction to somone who leads their entire life based around some sheepish belief is disdain. The feeling you get, what you describe as God, is merely what it feels like to be integrated into a group of people who think alike; to be totally accepted.

My first thought was, "Damn, yo. I want in on that." Frrrrrrrrig. I just definitely got converted to Christianity.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

incluye,

First of all, the Bible is just about the same right now as it was several hundred years ago, when the KJV first came out.

Although before then, it had gone through several revisions and re-orderings. In the Council of Nicea, a bunch of humans sat around and decided which books fit into their idea of what Christianity should be. You believe that? The cities Jesus visited in the New Testament change with newer editions of the Bible as the people transcribing it were more aware of geography. Heck, the Book of Revelations was just a criticism of Emperor Nero in disguise and shouldn't have even been in the Bible to begin with.

You've all heard the analogies of a designer in nature a thousand times, but you still can't walk outside, look at nature, and think that it all happened by chance, unless you're unwilling or afraid to hold that view, or you're just deluding yourself into believing it.

Or we've at all thought about the Watchmaker analogy?
So we have logical refutations of the Watchmaker analogy as well as scientific theories about the development of complex systems that are not only technically possible, but also totally reasonable and highly likely. The evolution of complex systems has even been recreated in labs pretty consistently. It's not that we can't find a way to reconcile this insuperable argument with our secretly God-fearing lives, but that it's been overturned so solidly that it's as dead as Pascal's Wager. You won't see the Watchmaker analogy enter a serious debate in a religion, just as you won't see an obsolete weapon like the glaive-guisarme in use by the US Marine Corps (although that would be pretty cool).
You can blame us all you want for not falling for the same debunked nonsense you fell for, but if you're going to convince anyone here, you're going to need to learn some new tricks.

You'll know about scientists in high-ranking fields who have been converted to Christianity.

As of 1998, 93% of the scientists in the National Academy of Sciences are atheists (72.2% are "strong" atheists).
This figure has only been trending upwards since the first survey in 1914, in which only 52.7% were "strong" atheists (73.6% atheists overall).

The Case For a Creator by Lee Strobel entails a few little details about the origin of the universe. Apparently gravity, the weakest attracting force in the galaxy, is an extremely sensitive instrument. That is, if you built a ruler that measured in standard inches, but which spanned the length of the known universe, and set the strength of gravity to one of the inch marks, moving it to the left or the right one inch would prevent the formation of planets, stars, etc.

The Fine Tuning argument is another dead horse, dude.
If you contrive a way that something may have happened and see that that thing did happen, this is zero evidence whatsoever that your way is the way it actually happened. If I say that magical space elves, who live in a reality with 20 dimensions, fabricated in their lab a universe which adjusts itself to optimal conditions before they injected life into it, then that has exactly the same amount of evidence for it that the Fine Tuning Argument does.
Not to mention you wouldn't be here in the first place in conditions weren't perfect. It's not like the strong nuclear force could be off by an order of magnitude and we'd all be commenting on how much it sucked that matter can't form. And for that reason, you don't even know that there weren't billions of universes before this iteration that didn't have their constants quite right, or in other dimensions or something. There are so many blatant assumptions in such arguments for Creationism that they can't possibly be taken seriously.

Another point is that one obscure little value which I don't know much about: that is, the original space-phase volume (which is allegedly scientifically vital to the Big Bang) was sensitive, during formation, to a factor of one in 10^150, which is more than the number of particles in the known universe. It's like if you tiled the surface of all the planets in several galaxies with one-inch tiles then was allowed to pick up one, that one would have the instructions to a self-supporting universe written on the underside.

lol, how does DNA work again?
This is as awesome as it is completely irrelevant to God. Why is it that you see something amazing and immediately say that a magic man must've done it? That just cheapens it.

Why? Why would anyone do that? "The Universal Lottery! The prize: a habitable universe which supports sapient life! The odds: 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000..."

Ha! And how are you computing these odds, exactly?

The fact that you say there's no proof for God's existence mystifies me.

And you know what? I feel the same way! I see the way the Church ammends cosmic truths, how lightly people take what they ought to believe are objective facts, how devout people can ignore so easily the commands of a jealous and judgmental super-powerful super-authority and creator of morality and reality, how religious people can make a sour face at a blatant inconsistency in their faith but carry on as though it never happened, how quickly and rationally they dismiss other extremely similar religions, and I think... on some level, these people have to know it's all bullshit. They just have to. It couldn't possibly be the case that someone actually believes this stuff.
A read-through of the Bible shows that it's obviously written by a typical man of that time (and this one, even): intolerant, misogynistic, vengeful, greedy bastards who love violent stories and telling people what to do. This is such a basic idea and clearly the simplest explanation, and I can't help but chuckle when I see how people try so hard to bend themselves into pretzels to find some way to reconcile this with their crazy notion that it's a book of wise teachings and ultimate truths. It's simultaneously pathetic and hilarious.
Every time I see a celebration of Easter or Christmas, or a Catholic friend tells me he's celebrating Lent, or I attend a mass and watch people drink wine that a trained magician has turned into the blood of a 2,000 year old god, I can only help but wonder how many of these people have ever looked into what Christianity is actually about, and how many are only pretending they believe this nonsense because everyone else is doing it. And I wonder how much they actually understand the nature of facts when they change churches or denominations because its beliefs were different from their personal opinions, or any other time someone arbitrarily decides an objective fact. It's all just so stupid. "The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity, it is painful to think that the vast majority of people will never be able to rise above this view of life." -Sigmund Freud
You obviously know the story of Jesus of Nazareth. I hear people my age tell me that they are Christ-followers instead of Christians, or that they think he was a wise man with words to live by but not actually a God. And it's clear to me that they invented their religion in the same way I'm sure most religions (especially Eastern religions) were invented: the "wouldn't it be cool if" principle. They got an awesome idea, didn't bother to check whether or not it would be reasonable, and start youth camps to brainwash children with this stuff but still inexplicably call them Christians. I actually think C.S. Lewis said it best: "I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I am ready to accept Jesus as the great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a boiled egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell... Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
Hell, why not, let's talk more about what Christians think they know regarding Jesus. Loads of people think that Jesus was a physical person, even if they don't think he was divine; that he could've just been a madman and not at all supernatural, but he still lived and died when we think he did. To me, this isn't even a debate. I humor people with it, but anyone who is acquainted at all with mythology and Jesus' life story, as well as an ounce of critical thinking skills, can tell that the dude never was. He travels by boat to land-locked cities, demonstrates gross cultural ignorance, talks in past tense about events that happen decades after his death (all of the New Testament books were written many decades after Christ was alleged to have lived), and none of the cultures in that time, who were fanatical about writing down every event of remote interest that transpired, ever wrote about the guy.
All that aside, you know what the first thing was that convinced me that Jesus didn't exist? There are stories of earlier Jesuses in popular Mediterranean and Eastern mythology, which doesn't look good for Christianity given its propensity to steal bits and pieces from other religions (did you know Hell came from Zoroastrianism?). Sure, there are people 600 years before Christ like Mithra (who was born on December 25, walked around performing miracles, resurrected three days after his death, known as the Way, the Truth, the Saviour, the Lamb, and the Messiah), and 1000 years before Christ like a certain avatar of Krishna (a carpenter, born of a virgin, baptised in a river, walked around with a posse performing miracles). But the guy who really takes the cake is ironically the same solitary piece of evidence that I've seen Christians use to try to prove the existence of Jesus: the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It definitely does mention a guy walking around doing the things Jesus did, but the problem is that it was written around 1280-the-fuck-BC. So who's the Jesus then? Why it's none other than Horus!
Horus was...

• the son of the god Osiris
• born to a virgin mother
• baptised in a river by Anup the Baptizer
• ...who was later beheaded
• tempted while alone in the desert
• had 12 disciples
• healed the sick
• restored the blind
• raised a man from the dead (the man was named 'Asar', which has the same meaning as the Greek 'Lazarus': "God (has) helped")
• cast out demons
• walked on water
• crucified on the cross
• resurrected three days later
• ...when two women announced that Horus, the salvation of humanity, had resurrected

I mean come the fuck on, people. Just come on.

I should've been at work an hour and a half ago.

[Amadeus]

Not to mention you wouldn't be here in the first place in conditions weren't perfect. It's not like the strong nuclear force could be off by an order of magnitude and we'd all be commenting on how much it sucked that matter can't form. And for that reason, you don't even know that there weren't billions of universes before this iteration that didn't have their constants quite right, or in other dimensions or something. There are so many blatant assumptions in such arguments for Creationism that they can't possibly be taken seriously.

QFE

[otters]

Horus was...
the son of the god Osiris
born to a virgin mother
baptised* in a river by Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded
tempted in the desert
had around four disciples
healed the sick**
restored the blind**
raised a man from the dead (the man was named 'Asar', which has the same meaning as the Greek 'Lazarus': "God (has) helped")
cast out demons**
walked on water
crucified on the cross
resurrected three days later
...when two women announced that Horus, the salvation of humanity, had resurrected.

*the closest parallel here in egyptian literature is that Horus had died and been cast in pieces in the water, and his parts were fished out by Sebek the crocodile god at Isis' request, which is not that much of a baptism
**although miracle stories have originated from religions around the world that could not have any link to each other

I have edited the quote above to reflect the truth of the Horus-Jesus situation.

It's simultaneously pathetic and hilarious...I humor people with it, but anyone who is acquainted at all with mythology and Jesus' life story, as well as an ounce of critical thinking skills, can tell that the dude never was.

This is so out there that I'm not sure how to respond. This is also why I accused you of ad hominem, because you're probably the most arrogant person I've ever met when it comes to religion, and I especially hope you're not this way in real life. I generally respect people whether they're atheists or not, but there's a point at which it's unreasonable. I mean, you obviously think we're a giant group of delusional fucking idiots who somehow, out of the 249 million of us, manage not to look at our religion at all, because it's inconvenient. Although I suppose at this point it's pointless to argue how ridiculous that is, since I'm such a brainless troglodyte.

It's not hilarious to me at all how condescending you are, just sad: that this is how people begin to think about other people when they don't have the Bible's doctrines to guide them anymore. I can function with people who don't believe what I do. It's kind of abrasive when I find out that they see me as lesser beings because I'm religious. But wait!

As for the people themselves, I'm a very laidback sort of person and can make friends with just about anyone (although things get sticky if there is nothing more to someone than their religion *cough*acaddict).

At this point, it's fairly obvious that all you see of me is my religion.

Firstly, I was a Russian Orthodox Christian before I started the transition toward what I am now. And secondly, I hope to High goddamn Heaven that the Bible is indeed a farce, and that the world at large never subscribes its teachings. It is one evil fucking book.

But...but you're not trying to get along with the Christian population of us at all. You can say stuff like you're okay with them, but not with them being a tradition, and then you call our guiding book a box of crap.

Frankly, I don't think your current beliefs came from looking at Christianity. It looks like you've been abused, somehow, by some faction who called themself Christian. Like, you tell me in all honesty that the Bible is an Evil Fucking Book, but you don't tell me why.

I wonder...

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

As for the people themselves, I'm a very laidback sort of person and can make friends with just about anyone (although things get sticky if there is nothing more to someone than their religion *cough*acaddict).

At this point, it's fairly obvious that all you see of me is my religion.

But... the only person I accused of that is macaddict...
You're macaddict!?
D: D: D:

But...but you're not trying to get along with the Christian population of us at all.

Huh? Most of my friends are Christians.
Did you just completely skip over / forget that whole bit about how I act in a debate context? Of course I'm not like this in a social setting! I just said that. Seriously. If you only ever talk to me in Debate, you shouldn't be expecting me to make small talk. I mean, I do remember a time when you tried talking to me on IRC, but it didn't help that you effectively led off with "WHY DO YOU HATE THE BABY JESUS??"
Y'know, I have this friend you really remind me of, actually. He's a cool guy and all, but I swear, his memory only goes back like two phrases. Just the other day, I was talking off-hand about equality (April 20th was Hitler's birthday; I know this because that's my sister's birthday also and I give her crap for it) and I said something like:
"Now, clearly everyone deserves to be treated equally and, ideally, given the same opportunities in life to succeed," (he nods, 'mmhmm's) "but it's a sad observation that people draw different lots in life, y'know? Some people are born ugly, some are naturally stupid... some are both. There's a whole lot of people that you and I are better in every way than, and undoubtedly people who are better than us in every way."
And he comes back with, "so you're saying some people should be treated differently?"
Like... no. Dude. I just said that I didn't, not 10 seconds ago.

Frankly, I don't think your current beliefs came from looking at Christianity. It looks like you've been abused, somehow, by some faction who called themself Christian.

Nah, it pretty much started in the Russian Orthodox Church I went to (and you really don't get a whole lot more Christian than that). My brother and I were in the parish school (my brother got to learn how to read ancient Slavic, which is not a fan of vowels >:[ ). I only really started to get threats for being an atheist years after I started doubting. And the threats I did (and still do, sometimes) get didn't worry me all that much because, well... I'm a pretty big guy, and I have some pretty big friends. And if we're in a small town where the people who are threatening me know the people who know me, well... no one has ever made good on any of their threats to me. Not really the point, though -- the threat was still there, and it was meant in earnest. Not terribly nice, y'know?
In short, there's no way I can see that I might've been "scared into" my atheism.
And wait... "called [themselves]" Christian? Are you implying that they were this New Age Christ-Follower thing you are, or that they were just behaving very unChristianly? Because if it's the latter... well, you've seen the prison population statistic. I'd say that if there was such a group that might have "abused" me or whatever, they'd definitely fit the bill for typical Christians.

you tell me in all honesty that the Bible is an Evil Fucking Book, but you don't tell me why.

Well no, I was telling Twistkill in all honesty that the Bible is an evil fucking book.
And I also think I have actually told you more than once why I think it's an evil fucking book. Hell, I partially did it in the post directed at you... in a part of the post you replied to, even!

A read-through of the Bible shows that it's obviously written by a typical man of that time (and this one, even): intolerant, misogynistic, vengeful, greedy bastards who love violent stories and telling people what to do.

But since you also replied my post to Twistkill as though I addressed it to you anywhere, I'll also include what I put there, too:

Besides coming with tales of magical talking snakes and some terrifying stories of people committing war crimes in the name of God, you also have orders to hate and kill an astoundingly large variety of people. I don't see the majority of Christians actually following any Christian doctrine (and thank God for that!).

Horus was...
son of the god Osiris
born to a virgin mother
baptised* in a river by Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded
tempted in the desert
had around four disciples
healed the sick**
restored the blind**
raised a man from the dead (the man was named 'Asar', which has the same meaning as the Greek 'Lazarus': "God (has) helped")
cast out demons**
walked on water
crucified on the cross
resurrected three days later
...when two women announced that Horus, the salvation of humanity, had resurrected.

*the closest parallel here in egyptian literature is that Horus had died and been cast in pieces in the water, and his parts were fished out by Sebek the crocodile god at Isis' request, which is not that much of a baptism
**although miracle stories have originated from religions around the world that could not have any link to each other

I have edited the quote above to reflect the truth of the Horus-Jesus situation.

Okay, even if I concede all of those (which I don't), that's still damning evidence. And I didn't even include a full list of accusations (which can be found on Google, if you're feeling lucky).

I wonder...

What's in a Wonder Ball?
It's toys, yo.

[otters]

And I also think I have actually told you more than once why I think it's an evil fucking book. Hell, I partially did it in the post directed at you... in a part of the post you replied to, even!

Meh. Yeah, I won't hold you to linking me back to every single time you made a rant about the Bible. Duly noted.

...I don't know, just starting to have doubts about Christianity doesn't make me think you could have come to this view about it. I mean, you debate like you're channeling the spirit of Richard Dawkins. You guys sound almost exactly alike. It's weird.

Like... no. Dude. I just said that I didn't, not 10 seconds ago.

Ehehe. Heh.

Huh? Most of my friends are Christians.

I can understand that, I guess. Have you ever told them what you think of their faith and the Bible, though? Wouldn't that be troublesome? Like, cause problems with your friendship?

I think I'm conceding this debate: I can't tell, exactly. I don't know why I always end up debating about the existence of God, as all it's going to get me is frustrated and suck up my time when typing posts. I would like to leave you personally, Suki, with the strong assurance that, although you referenced my cold hatred of atheists back a page or so, I don't hate you. I don't hate anyone. As I said, you piss me off in the whole Debate forum but I'm sure you're a good and unoffensive person outside the Internet. Just like I don't swear nearly at all in the real world or be as abusive to people as I am here.

Eh. -_-

[SlappyMcGee]

I don't really understand how you can be angry at Tsukatu's post. There's no doubt he writes in an agressive style, but that's because that style is an effective debate tool that conveys a lot of points quickly. Thankfully, we're in a forum, so you can take the time to research each of his points and come back with a rebuttal. Instead, you would consistently highlight specific phrases without any context and try and criticize those without actually tackling many of his issues as a whole. Plus, you seem to only feel the need to respond to Tsuki's posts, despite the fact that both me and Hoch had posted previous, and you didn't post pertaining to the content that either of us posted on (nor the paragraph where Tsukatu posted on the same subject.) Surely, if the agressive style of debate is annoying to you, then you realize how annoying it is to be ignored when somebody makes the claim that there is some sort of proof behind Christianity. But I'll give you a pass, of course, since you are one dude trying to argue against our relentless logic, and you probably don't have time to check all of your facts as well as ours.

Anyway, long story short, if we haven't left you with any questions about your religion, then we will never, ever be able to reason with you successfully. :/

[isaacx]

so you wont be able to ?

[SlappyMcGee]

so you wont be able to ?

isaacx, your failed attempt at wit only shows that you've been checking this topic at least somewhat, and if you're able to make this claim then you mean to say that you've read everything here, and the fact that you haven't posted in four pages with anything but direct quotes from from scripture tends to indicate that you don't have much of a mind for yourself. incluye, at least, was able to put his own thoughts and ideas out there that didn't necessarily lign up perfectly with Christianity, because certainly they don't talk about the science of the creation of the universe anywhere in the Bible. And if the reason you only post scripture is because your ideals -do- match up with the Bible, then I think you probably shouldn't be on the internet, because you're skippin' over all kinds of rules that you truly believe are correct.

[isaacx]

then I think you probably shouldn't be on the internet, because you're skippin' over all kinds of rules that you truly believe are correct.

like what?

[SlappyMcGee]

then I think you probably shouldn't be on the internet, because you're skippin' over all kinds of rules that you truly believe are correct.

like what?

I'm extremely skeptical that you aren't aware of the rules that are largely ignored by modern Christianity, but this link gives a few: Is The Bible the Best Moral Guide? Or, if you're more for poring through a list, use that articles source: Questionable Guidelines

[Tanner]

I'm extremely skeptical that you aren't aware of the rules that are largely ignored by modern Christianity, but this link gives a few: Is The Bible the Best Moral Guide? Or, if you're more for poring through a list, use that articles source: Questionable Guidelines

i dont get it

[otters]

I'm extremely skeptical that you aren't aware of the rules that are largely ignored by modern Christianity, but this link gives a few: Is The Bible the Best Moral Guide? Or, if you're more for poring through a list, use that articles source: Questionable Guidelines

i dont get it

wtf dud? guidlines?

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

...I don't know, just starting to have doubts about Christianity doesn't make me think you could have come to this view about it.

How does anyone get passionate about something aside from having a traumatic experience? It interested me a lot for some crazy reason, so I looked into it.

I mean, you debate like you're channeling the spirit of Richard Dawkins. You guys sound almost exactly alike. It's weird.

Why, thank you!! You're making me blush...

Huh? Most of my friends are Christians.

I can understand that, I guess. Have you ever told them what you think of their faith and the Bible, though? Wouldn't that be troublesome? Like, cause problems with your friendship?[/quote]
Yeah, they all know what I think of religion in general and Christianity specifically. The trick there is that I make friends with people who have a mindset like Twistkill's: they don't let their personal views get in the way of healthy socializing. With most of them, we simply don't talk about it. With others, we've agreed to disagree. And with the one or two left over, we save it for the next time we're drunk and bored.

[otters]

I should probably act more like that.

[capt_weasle]

Oh, hey, I found this on the old forum, in a Religion debate thread:

"And then there were two, yet little they new
that ten pages spent bickering would
keep quarrels flickering,
among the faithless and pure
they would never find cure
for the disease that spread among the living and dead
that would keep them up in fear and dread
in the middle of night as they lie in their bed
as they lie awake pondering, "Why are we here?"
or "Is judgment day near?"
Forever imbedded into their thoughts
were the truths they held dear, never let go, as anxious as fear

The people continued, their daily fight
causing upheaval and plethora of plight
And for all their cause, they continued despite
the fact that it would never end"

Good to know we can wrap up some things, you know, until some other poor, unsuspecting person walks in here without reading anything.

[SlappyMcGee]

This video is absolutely amazing.

[Studebacher Hoch]

This video is absolutely amazing.

While Richard Dawkins remains my least favourite of the Big Three (Sam Harris FTW, continuing my long-standing tradition of judging people based on their Wikipedia picture), this is an amazing video.

[shiprelation_]

I personally do not. I am a man of science. Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. The amount of evidence supporting God is virtually nothing. Evolution, however, has loads of proof.

I have no intention to offend anyone so don't post if you are going to cuss me out.

Discuss your opinion.

I certainly DO believe in God! He is the only God, I don't believe in Evolution. I believe in CREATION! Tell me this "How is the BIG BANG thoery true?" Well if you are a strong Evolution believer than you can answer that Q. Creation has loads of evidence and tested positive. If Humans started as an ape, Than why are we not giving birth to apes?

[Radium]

Than why are we not giving birth to apes?

Bahahaha. It's called evolution over time. Bahahahahaha.