Atheist

[therest123]

Shadrach Wrote:

therest123 Wrote:"blacktip shark is the second documented case of a female shark becoming pregnant without the aid of a male shark."

Does this help support bible's claim of Mary and Jesus?

no.
did jesus only have DNA from mary (your fatherless shark only had the mothers DNA)? was their a scientific study done on mary or jesus? is their ANY single peice of evidence to support the bible's claim of mary and jesus?

Of course there was no DNA testing back 2000 years ago. Perhaps since there is no DNA tests from that time there is no unequivical DNA proof that any people existed. Now I am left with writings dated several hundred years later than Jesus's birth that have been perturbated to read as the church would want. I offer no proof (after reading all I could find on the web there seemed to be most if not all that would alot of faith to believe the proof offered and do not wish to be a biblical scholar). There does seem to be a consistent thread the a Jesus existed but only faith could make the jump to son of god and virgin birth.

did you know that male sea horses give birth to baby sea horses, so maybe joseph was knocked up with jesus, not mary.

I do not believe in Jesus as son of god and this virgin birth. The bible has that Joseph did not know Mary before Jesus's birth means to me that Mary had already been knocked up. But these are trivial pursuits.

What I am looking for is a way to protect myself against religious zealots, Any ideas?

[Shadrach]

therest123 Wrote:What I am looking for is a way to protect myself against religious zealots, Any ideas?

education is the best weapon. knowledge of the subject and how both sides will respond to questions on different topics.

p.s. the zealots are easy to discount. you need to worry about the moderates.

[therest123]

Shadrach Wrote:

therest123 Wrote:What I am looking for is a way to protect myself against religious zealots, Any ideas?

education is the best weapon. knowledge of the subject and how both sides will respond to questions on different topics.

p.s. the zealots are easy to discount. you need to worry about the moderates.

[therest123]

therest123 Wrote:

Shadrach Wrote:

therest123 Wrote:What I am looking for is a way to protect myself against religious zealots, Any ideas?

education is the best weapon. knowledge of the subject and how both sides will respond to questions on different topics.

p.s. the zealots are easy to discount. you need to worry about the moderates.

It seems that religion is gaining ground when a zealot may be vice president. I am serious.. Are there organizations that will protect us if she is vice president and only creationism can be taught in schools?

For the first time in my life (I am 59) I will vote democrat to not have that craziness in the whitehouse. Other than voting what can be done?

[Jameson93]

I got a lot of reasons. I find religion very illogical and bias. Let's see there are/have been millions of religion trough out the world. Now comes the tricky part, which of them to choose?

There is absolutely NO bigger reason to believe in the christian god than in any other god.
The Bible is full on inaccuaricies, contradictions and brutalities committed by God or ordered by him.
The Bible tells you to kill gays, disobidient children and women who aren't virgins when they get married. It tells that women are just a shadow of a mans glory as a man is just a shadow of Gods glory.
So the bible is very sexist too.

[George]

(05-19-2008 10:47 AM)MerryAtheist Wrote:  From my perspective, the word "God" is too poorly defined. I cannot believe in a word that has no clear meaning.

True. Very good.

[Atheist_Metalhead]

(04-28-2008 08:25 AM)Ephratah7 Wrote:  Atheism: lack of belief in God or active disbelief in God.

Why don't Atheist Believe in God? What are their reasons?

Personally, I see no valid arguments in the Bible that there is truly an existent God. There's only stuff like do this and do that, y'know? And then the answer to everything, "What if I don't believe in god?" then you go to hell. "what happens if you commit adultery?" you go to hell.
furthermore, religion says that if you believe in Jesus, then you'll go to heaven. We all know that the KKK was a group of christian extremists, and they killed, threatened and did unspeakable acts against Africans. but since they believe in god, they're going to heaven!
moreover, the church seems to me as very hypocritical. for example, we're supposed to be humble and yada yada yada. but look at the vatican. they're ROLLING in the money. That's not very humble to me.
finally, it seems to me like people who aren't all that sure of themselves are the ones who are the most religious, because they're seeking refuge from the real world because they don't know who they are and they're hiding from reality under promises of rewards after death. and the reason most people are religious is because they were influenced at a young age when their minds were the most corruptible.

[rm10]

(10-08-2008 07:04 AM)therest123 Wrote:  I think we all want to know are beliefs are true. I can not show evidence of "all" because I have not met and talked to all people, probably less than 0.001% of the world's population which at best I would call if a poorly selected sample. So let say it is a personal observation gleaned from reflection about past conversation. Now my scientific log books show no entries and I did not have a peer review of the finding. But I still believe that we all want to know are beliefs are true.

Therest123,

I have read through this thread, and here is my response. You apply way to much virtue to the process of "belief". Belief is nothing but a hard conclusion made on very little evidence. In science it is recognized as an invalid process, since a hard conclusion should only occur when there is sufficient evidence, ie: high confidence of probability of the concept being part of reality. I don't "believe" in anything because I don't feel the need to form a conclusion on a hypothesis for which there is insufficient data to support it.

Having set that background, can you describe God in your own words? I don't mean by stating what you think God does or did, since that would be getting ahead of the process. Step one is to describe the God, in terms of reality, that can be tested. If you can't do that, everything you have said so far in support of theism is moot, because you would not yet be at a God hypothesis argument position.

[atheistinutah]

hey guys first post!!!!
The reason I am atheist is not because of all the evil that is being committed in the world and it is not because something terrible that has happened in my life. I say this purely from speculation, because here in Utah atheists are hard to come by, but I think that most people are atheist just because it makes more sense to them. The first time atheism ever even entered my mind, my brother said that he is going to tell his kids that all of the fairy tales like santa, the easter bunny, and JESUS aren't real.... He said this when I was about fifteen and I was raised in a Catholic family. It struck such great fear in me that my brother didn't believe in jesus... He was going to hell for not believing in Jesus... I prayed for him, blah blah blah... Then I started asking myself why I believed in Jesus... All I could come up with was that it was because I was raised to. The thought that kinda helped me open my mind was that I was thinking that someone could have simply made that up... But why would they? I honestly think that religion is a good way of keeping people in check... Not scared of death? You can handle torturing? Okay well eternal damnation should keep you behaving well... Granted that is most likely not the way religion came to be, it helped me start to think differently about religion. At that point there were so many reasons that I was scared to "not believe". I still had it carved into my head that non-believers would go to hell, and what about after death? The thought of just not existing scared me so deeply I can't explain it. This fear stayed in my mind up until only a year or two ago... One of the things that helped me deal with it was a simple quote. I can't remember who said it but it went something like this... "I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and it has served no inconvenience to me whatsoever." It seems petty that something like that could totally change my thinking, but it really helped.
Now religion just seems to me as an act of comforting people. Its a friend to talk to when no one is around, its a promise that you will exist for eternity, etc. I think that some people are too hostile towards religion; it does a lot of good things for a lot of people. Granted it is the cause of numerous wars, I truly think that it helps a lot of people.
This is bordering a rant and I have strayed from your question so I will just cut it here... I just like talking about religion and went all out on my first post... Science bless!

[Voidus]

oh love the ending, do you mind if I steal the science bless?