Quote:Original post by dagarach

Quote:Original post by Chris81

What makes you think the bible was written after the fact?

It is not disputed that no books of the New Testament, including the biographies of Jesus, were written until some time after his death. The Old Testament is a different matter, but history is always written by the winners, and prophecies only become interesting when they come true. Plenty of other prophecies are forgotten about, because they did not. This is how bogus psychics work, people remember what they got right, and forget what they got wrong.

If you are basing your faith on Old Testament Prophets, and the amazing precognition displayed in the book of Daniel, why are you a Christian? Why not take up Judaism?

There are no prophesies in the bible that didn't come true. Unlike psychics or nostra domis's.

I am not basing my faith on the prophets of the old testament alone. In fact, jesus repeatedly referred to prophecies in the old testament and how he was fulfilling them, all the way until the last words on the night of his death.

The books were written after his death, by 4 different apostles in 4 different sytles in 4 different places and times, all giving their accounts of the events and they all significantly match up.

Quote:Original post by OpenGL_Guru
should Christians in the Bible belt be exposed to homosexuality in their communities? dont they have as much right not to accept it as much as they think they have the same right to have it?

Yes, yes they should, because what another man chooses to stick his cock into is none of their damned business. You don't have a right to dictate how other people can live their lives.

You don't have to like what they do, or even think it's moral. However, that does not give you the right to stop other people from going about their business. It doesn't affect you, it is none of your business.

Hell, why stop at gays, why not make it illegal to practice other religions? Should those poor persecuted christians have to put up with people having different beliefs to themselves?

You have a right to practise your religion, sure. But when your religion is trying to stop someone else from doing something that doesn't affect you, then that's where your rights end, you just have to deal with it.

Should racists in areas with high amounts of racism be exposed to blacks? Yes, yes they should. They're not forced to like them, they just can't go about lynching them, or making it illegal for whites to marry blacks. It's the same damned thing.

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Christians havent been forcing their way of life on the gay community..its the gay community that have been trying to force their lifestyle on them.. not through voting but through the courts.

How exactly? It's not like the gay community is trying to force people to be gay or trying to force churches to marry gay people. Gays just want to have the same rights that we do.

This "oh i'm such a poor persecuted christian, they're making it illegal for me to force people to live by the rules of my religion. Why can't I force other people to be like me?" shit needs to stop.

Christianity claims that God gave everyone free will. Christians who force other people to live by their religion, through the use of unjust laws, obviously must know better than God.

Quote:Original post by Chris81
I also honestly not believe in evolution. And not because I would choose to just ignore the supposed evidences as many pro-creationists might. I have looked at the evidence and there isn't enough there to conclusively say evolution is true. At least 100 scientists and paleontologists agree with me who are not tied with religion. You can find a list of all their names, universities, etc. on the net.

The fact that among the many many thousands of credible scientists, there are only 100 that agree with you on this should be ringing alarm bells in your brain.

Quote:Original post by entity111

Quote:Original post by Chris81
There are a few reasons why I believe such. First, if you compare the writings of the bible with other ancient writings you will see a distinct difference. The bible writers write with candor and openly admit their failures, etc. Where it is rare to find such honesty in other writings. Also the bible includes hundreds of references to exact places and times in every book, such as the third year of king so-and-so and in the district of here, near the plain of this. They all fit with topology and secular documents and archaeology referencing these kings, times, and places. Other ancient writings that contain myths, etc. all speak in broad sensical terms, without concrete references to people, places, or times.

Further, the bible says that it is inspired by god, and has contents that can only be explained as inspired by god. Again, if god created the universe, inspired the Bible, etc...why would he permit exaggerations, falsified, and/or inaccurate "stories" to be put into a book representing him and claiming to be true?

Yes, I'm sure many of these people genuinely believed the stuff they were writing. It must have been an extreamly confusing time for people. Simple things that we would dismiss nowadays as natural events, tricks, optical illusions, figments of our imagination or products of hallucinagenic substances etc, would easily have been mis-interpreted at that time as miacles, or acts of god.

I don't doubt that these things would have seemed very real to the people involved at that time, and they would have written about them, and passed the stories onto their friends with great vigour; but I see no reason to believe these things written then any more than we would believe them if someone claimed they happened now.

How do you exaggerate someone being resurrected to natural phenonemon? Or someing being blind and then regaining sight. Or water turning into wine. Or a large sea splitting into two. Or many others. There is no way to exaggerate those claims from more explicable naturaly occuring events. Either it was true, or they completely lied...all of them. There is no reason to believe they lied.

Quote:Original post by entity111

Quote:Original post by Chris81
I also honestly not believe in evolution. And not because I would choose to just ignore the supposed evidences as many pro-creationists might. I have looked at the evidence and there isn't enough there to conclusively say evolution is true. At least 100 scientists and paleontologists agree with me who are not tied with religion. You can find a list of all their names, universities, etc. on the net.

The fact that among the many many thousands of credible scientists, there are only 100 that agree with you on this should be ringing alarm bells in your brain.

Not really, if you are a scientist in the community, you will be looked down upon or descredited if you don't believe in evolution. It's sort of like a bully system, "we all say it's true and if you don't you're stupid". The fact that 100+ scientists would risk their standing to openly publish the evolution theory for what it really is, a theory, is rather impressive.

On the other hand, there are many accounts of some of these "thousands of credible scientists" that have fabricated evidence in support of evolution. I wonder why they would stoop to such a level?

Quote:Original post by fisheyel83l
Jesus never claimed to describe what you see around you. If anything, he claimed to be able to describe the things you couldn't otherwise see. I love it when people demand evidence of God to satisfy their rationalism. That's like me demanding of science to explain the meaning of life. It doesn't work that way.

uhm, rationalism does give any answer to what the meaning of life is, namely, that there is none. you cant dismiss it on the sole grounds that you dont like it.

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And Occam's Razor would have relevance here if Christianity didn't have implications. But it does. And it's philosophically justified.

neither of those grandiose claims carries any weight without substantiation im affraid.

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If, however, you choose to believe that life evolved, or, better yet, that there is no God or eternal soul...then there is no way, as far as I can tell, to attribute value to your experiences, you moral values, or anything else. Without eternality, there's no way to rationalizer your existence.

so?

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Splitting a rock in two amounts to splitting a human in two, in the long run. What value does happiness have if it'll disappear and be forgotten? If the universe (or simply life therein) ends, then there's no justification for ANYTHING.

so?

once again just because you dont like the conclusions that follow from rational thought doesnt mean you can dismiss them. not without being the epithome of intellectual dishonesty, in any case.

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These are simple truths that Christianity resolves. So take your Occam's Razor to THAT shit...

christianity doesnt resolve them any more than the flying spaghetti monster, aka the pink elephants.

if you really want to learn more about them, PM me.


(see how annoying that is?)

Quote:Original post by Sandman
Strictly speaking, 'evolution' is about as close to an incontrovertible fact as it is possible to get.

I think that is a pretty bold statement. If so, why hasn't it been declared proven fact, rather than remaining a theory? Also why are there millions of people who don't believe in evolution if it's so incontrovertible?

Quote:Original post by OpenGL_Guru
If people are born gay then how come there are many people that i know who were gay but have turned from that lifestyle and now they are all married with kids?

Yes, because being married and having kids totally means you are not gay.

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There is a youth intern at my church who was gay for years, involved in all kinds of homosexual acts. He found Jesus and turned from his lifestyle and is now married 3 years. if they were born that way then surely they would not be able to change that lifestyle right?

Just because someone denies who they really are, because of what their religion teaches, does not mean that they are no longer gay.

Besides which, why should non-religious gay people have to change who they are, just because you personally have a problem with it? Who put you in charge? Are you God himself?

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surely you have heard of Dr James Dobson and FOcus on the Family. There is someone on that program who used to be gay as well but was delivered from that lifestyle through Jesus.

The word brainwashing comes to mind.