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Because I probably know as much about the bible as you do, if I don't I will simply make up something.And yet you want to come here and engage an American Christian in debate?
Why?
That's certainly a possibility. Some of my Atheist friends have brought up the same idea of a manufactured God, but most go with the "I'm afraid of the dark and the unknown" angle. I personal have gone with the idea that Faith is a key to a lock called "WHY?" It answers a myriad of questions for those who have already made up their mind. Faith in god or Science, Philosophy, mankind. It makes no difference where the answers come from as long as you believe in the institution. God is simply a relative label like science is. It's a means to an end of continued questioning.
As I've said before. believe what you want but believe it fully or not at all.
As far as masses go. I don't really put much stock in the wisdom of the masses since I saw how many people fell in love with a rock that somebody glued felt onto and called it a pet.
Because I probably know as much about the bible as you do, if I don't I will simply make up something.
Arguing about religion is all about interpretation, you simply read it to get out of it whatever you want, where it says up you read it to say down,
when someone disagrees quote a random verse and say it proves your point.
I am an alcoholic that has not had a drink for nearly 30 years. I can not explain to any how that life felt to me and what it was like when I finally withdrew from that world. I say withdrew because when you drink as an alcoholic you pickle your brain in that stuff so bad that even after you stop drinking it takes several months for your brain to clear itself. You will feel just as sick and tired of being sick and tired until that single instant when you wake up with your entire body, mind and soul free of toxins.
It was like emerging from a dark, dank hole filled with foul molasses that suffocated any joy and containment that I could have ever felt anywhere into a bright shiny new world that I remembered so long ago, but now was even more bright with spender and opportunity than it ever could be.
This describes the feelings I had when I was within the JW community. It was not till later that I grew to notice the things that would ultimately remove me from that world. I've looked for that in every religion and form of spiritualism that I've ever explored and I have not seen anything other than the philosophy I hold today that will bring me anywhere close to that feeling.
My search continues!
I'll say this...speaking with atheists has made me examine my faith, and why I believe what I believe.IMO, many debate their faith to secure and protect their belief to themselves and it has nothing to do with trying to convince someone who is a non believer they are wrong.
AMEN to that![VERSE=Proverbs 27:17,KJV]Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.[/VERSE]I'll say this...speaking with atheists has made me examine my faith, and why I believe what I believe.
And my faith grew and became stronger for it.
No, you still haven't got it straight. The sickos at Planned Parenthood were caught discussing how to kill babies and harvest their organs for money.Let me get this straight, it's anti-choicers has been caught LYING, but it's PP that's "evil"? Again,IF your cause is just why lie EVER? This tells all I need to know with regard to the TRUE Evil™ here and it isn't PP.
Which is why man has manufactured Gods for as long as man could come up with the idea, because we have evolved to derive some psychological benefit from thinking we have a higher understanding of things.
Now, as time has gone on, these Gods have come and go and one other interesting thing has happened; as we discover more about the universe and are able to grasp this understanding, it appears to correlate with fewer people believing in Gods and or relying on religion. Strong correlation between; higher education level attained and less belief in Gods and or religion.
With this said, it doesn't mean certain faith beliefs can not be beneficial to some, because they can be. It just so happens, depending on one's individual psychological makeup, not everyone requires one to be able to live a good life.
Who met a person? we are talking about an imaginary being, what has meeting someone got to do with having a feeling about something that is not there?
Since you seem to be dodging the question, let's pop the stack...
Where is the contradiction between being an evolved sack of chemicals and being made in the image of God are not contradictory statements.
1. Where's your EVIDENCE that they did any such thing? Oh yes, a DECEITFULLY edited video from some lying anti-choicers.
2. As far as I know "killing babies" is against the law and abortion is not "killing babies" (nothing but inflammatory anti-choicer rhetoric) and HERE are my arguments on why there no baby there to be killed (an old post, needs to have some links updated, but enough there still).
- According to some Christians even babies are born sinners deserving of death, but when it comes to abortion, they are suddenly "innocent" and must be "protected" at all costs.
- One has just gotta love the bare-faced, self-serving CONTRADICTION above as we are treated to buckets of crocodile tears wept by forced-birthers who's really aim to using the pregnancy as a weapon to stomp down/control the woman who's had the TEMERITY to have sex that they, these self-appointed Paladins of UBER-Righteousness™, don't approve of ( most anti-choicers really "pro-punishment", absolutely NOTHING to do with any genuine concern for "life" and all one has to do is go HERE to watch the counter clock up deaths from hunger, 75%-85% of the children, why bring MORE into the world when we fail to care for those already here?). More examples of why I think so:
- Post #60, outlining "Linda's Story" (such "compassion" from this lot of anti-choicers, much more accurately described as forced-birthers, the Pregnancy Press-Gang, and yes, I'm not going to be shy here about my complete contempt for this "bunch").
- Post #84, outlining this frightening encounter with the "missionaries to the pre-born".
- Then there's this lovely exchange where I'm informed that any woman who doesn't plan to spend her life as a perpetually gravid uterus must be crazy (the "if you don't pop out babies you're not a REAL Woman™" spiel)
- Of course we can always rely on dedicated forced-birthers to criminally invade the privacy of those not goosestepping to their particular POV as well resorting to intimidation, murder and character assassination as seen here in this old list and HERE in this post outlining just a partial list of the scaremongering used by some anti-choicers in their version of "blood libel" ginned up against their opponents
- But then using the correct medical terminolgy doesn't quite stir the emotions now does it (can't have people actually using their reason, can we?) That's why we see the terms "pro-deather", "abortuary", "baby butcher", etc.
- I guess that is why Joe Scheidler, Randall Terry and other leaders of the anti-choicer movement are so into the [/URL]Use of Inflammatory Rhetoric (Chap. 47-Closed! 99 Ways to Stop Abortion).
- Then this lot has the profound hypocrisy to try and claim they "don't advocate violence" when that sort of language breeds nothing but violence. The kind of "dialogue" recommended by Scheidler et al is NOT accurate.
- For instance, claiming that calling a embryo/fetus a "baby" is accurate does not make it so...but then using CORRECT medical terminology doesn't carry the "emotional/shock" value both you, Scheidler and Co. want to use. Shouting at people "fetus murderer" or "embryo-butcher" doesn't quite cut it in the the "shock" department quite as well as shouting "baby murderer", "baby-butcher" or "baby-killer" or "pro-deather".
- What is a real hoot is that Scheidler et al say don't use phrases like phrases lik "baby-butcher" TOO MUCH (why at all?) not because they are inflammatory (Scheidler et al recommend that), but because if used TOO OFTEN, it minimizes their "impact"(all he says to me is "we don't want to be exposed for the fanatics we really are too soon, so cool it unless you think you can get away with it")
- This sort of language does nothing but incite violence (it's true intent) which is why I find Scheidler and Co. to hypocrites of the first water when they goad their followers to use such language and then try to say "but we really don't recommend violence"....hypocrisy, MUCH!
3. And before you start bleating about my "rhetoric", all I can say is that your side of the fence loves to dish it out, but never can take it (how do you like this "dose of your own medicine"?)
No offense taken...the answer to your question is no. I've never had the misfortune to be in such a situation (unlike a huge number of women around the world who might).Have you ever had an abortion?
No offense, I'm just curious, here...
I see...so you have never read the Bible and you have absolutely no idea what might be in that book, or any notion of what Christians believe...heck most American atheists are a bit confused on that score...
And yet you want to come here and engage an American Christian in debate?
Why?
1) How unfortunate for your assumption of superior knowledge that this Pew Survey actually showed that it's ATHEISTS who know more about religion and the Bible:
Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.
On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.
Yeah...we saw that poll the other day. Maybe you missed it.
I don't know where they got their Christians. The sample questions on the site were ridiculously easy. My eight year old grand daughter could answer most of them. I was expecting an actual challenge...what a disappointment...
[QUOTE="gladiatrix, post: 68316659, member: 4302"2) What always amuses me to no end is the overwheening ARROGANCE exhibited by some Christians, strutting and preening in their assumption that atheists haven't read the Bible and that's why they're atheists....nothing could be further from the truth
That's because you live in a world of make believe.I'll say this...speaking with atheists has made me examine my faith, and why I believe what I believe.
And my faith grew and became stronger for it.
I learned that faith that can't be tested can't be trusted.
If you need me to tell you how a human being is more than just a "bag of chemicals" then you are probably already knee-deep in nihilism.In what way.?
This is important: you are lamenting the erosion of religious privilege, not religious liberty. If anything, religious liberty is greater now than it ever was in the past: you are can go to a church that does same-sex weddings or to a church that doesn't. You can pray to whatever god you want to, in any school, and you aren't forced to participate in anyone else's prayers.Perhaps that was true 50 years ago...but in the last several decades, our influence here in the U.S. has been waning. I'm old enough to remember when we prayed in school...a very insignificant, and highly generic little prayer, and no one was forced to participate. And I remember when the huge controversy started, because one woman did not like her daughter exposed to other children praying. And the adults around me crying "This is America! It can't happen here!!"
And then, it did.
And so it has gone. Symbols of our faith that have stood in place for generations have been torn down, lest they "offend" someone.
Every Christmas, some clown starts with the "don't call it Christmas, call it a "Winter Holiday" gig. It never works, because Christians will not shop where they can't say "Merry Christmas", but someone always tries...
And to the present. Our Supreme Court, which is the highest court in our land, has handed down it's decision...gay marriage is now legal in all fifty of our states. Now, given that it is the states who issue the marriage license, you'd think it would be up to them who they issued them to...and that has always been the case, more or less...other than when the Federal government passed the Civil Rights Act in 1965, making it illegal to discriminate against anyone because of their race, which many people see as being a bit different, since skin is something natural, while they don't see gay as being natural, but that's a whole other debate. We do have something called the "Full Faith and Credit Act" which states that if it was legal in the state you did it in, it's legal in all fifty...which kinda settles things, anyway, or at least you'd think so. Go figure, right?
And then there is abortion. A very large percentage of Christians have made it known that they do not support abortion, likening it to murder. However, it is still legal, in all fifty states.
Now, I'm not saying Christians are oppressed in America. That is definitely not true. As long as our Constitution is in force, it cannot be true...however, we do not have the influence we once had, and more particularly since our current president has been in power.
Perhaps we'll see that change soon, as he can't hold more than two terms in office, and his second ends next year, I believe...
Since we have data that indicates the opposite, this statement is either ignorant or deceitful.your kidding right ? Christianity changed laws to allow unwed folks to co-abide in fornication (sex outside of marriage ) ..? nope! same sex marriage ? nope! .. abortion ..? nope !,these law changes have not come from Christian influence but from the view of those who hold the premise that there is not God .. ie- evolutionist and atheists .and history displays every time that world view become predominant - death and suffering follow on mass scale
Believers are always so confident that their god is the "One True God" and that all the others are just "lookalikes" or cheap imitations. Yet the adherents of these "lookalikes" believe just as strongly as those who insist that theirs is the genuine article.What I believe is, that from the time there have been men advanced enough to worship, they have reached out for the God they instinctively knew was there.
(instinct-built in?)
God had revealed Himself "from the beginning"...but as time passed and people spread out, what was once known as a universal truth faded into ancient myths...
But, as I said, there is an instinct...a longing for God. People reached out for Him, reinventing Him over and over again...
Eventually, God made His voice heard again. He called a man named Abraham, and promised him that through his son, all the families would be blessed.
And that is what the Bible is all about.
Now, while I know there are many, many, many "look-alike" gods, there really is only One Jesus Christ.
In Him, and in Him alone, do I see God reaching down to mankind. He taught us love, and peace, and charity...love your neighbor as yourself; love your enemies; give to those who ask you, good measure, pressed down and shaken together; and my favorite verse in the entire Bible, which, since you haven't read it, I will post here for you:
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
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