04-05-2004 13:55									#211
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quote: Also a final point concerning the absurdity of free will.

The free will is the choice to want to love and be with your GOD.

You know the difference between right and wrong.
its your choice

	04-05-2004 15:53									#212
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quote: Originally posted by Solomwi I don't think it's hard for even atheists to give credit to the bible for having at least some historical accounts right. I saw an interesting program a while back postulating that the "great flood" was caused by a land bridge across the Bosporus giving way, leading to the creation of the Black Sea. If there's truth to that, certainly it would seem to those in the area that the entire world had flooded. From that point, how much of the Noah story is legend built around someone with a) enough foresight to see that such a thing might happen (similar to the Y2K bunker dwellers, but validated) or b) enough luck to have a boat available when it did start to happen, I don't know. That is all to say it might validate the bible account historically, but not theologically.

The Bible is almost useless for historical information as more reliable information in greater quantity is usually available from other sources. It is more accurate to say that these other sources while verifying many of the historical events in the Bible also point out a number of flaws in the Bible. The Bible suffers from having been rewritten / purged a number of times, often clumsily. It also suffers from Israel's position as something of a backwater in comparison to Egypt, Syria and what is now Lebanon.

	04-05-2004 15:55									#213
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quote: Originally posted by MrFun And then we have other examples of religious people, such as the Catholic priest and theologian professor I had for one class in undergraduate school. He and I have had reasonable, mutually respecting discussion on the issues of reconciling Christian values with homosexuality, in his office outside of class, without him ever suggesting I compromise part of what I am.

Was that the guy who was "showing hard" in the restroom later that day?

	04-05-2004 15:59									#214
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. Nice Guy Ah ha! This is what I predicted your response would be! It just so natural for an atheist to give such simple explanations for anything. Notice that these anomalies are not the same color as the natural rocks in the photo. The anomalies are brown. The natural rocks are all dark blue or black.

I'll bet you $1000 that they don't find an ancient ship on top of those mountains in the next five years, let alone Noah's Ark. Seriously.

	04-05-2004 16:38									#215
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"Ah ha! This is what I predicted your response would be! It just so natural for an atheist to give such simple explanations for anything. "
Simple eh? Oh of cource, there's bound to be something[]wrong[/i] with simple answers. Ever heard of Occham's razor?

	04-05-2004 16:57									#216
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quote: The free will is the choice to want to love and be with your GOD. You know the difference between right and wrong. its your choice

Riight. Nice 'free' choice. You either believe and love your God and go to heaven or you dare to be different and burn in hell. Nice choice there. That is not free will. Free will is to be who you want to be and God should respect you for that.

Also right and wrong. I know what right and wrong is according to my own principles but I can almost guarantee that they will differ to religious rights and wrongs, and I somehow think that some religious peoples should pull their arrogant heads out of their arrogant arses and don't presume that their right and wrongs are the only 'true' ones.

	04-05-2004 17:04									#217
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quote: Originally posted by Sikander I'll bet you $1000 that they don't find an ancient ship on top of those mountains in the next five years, let alone Noah's Ark. Seriously.

I'll get me some of that action. Boats getting up on a 17,000 foot mountain just ain't going to happen.

However, I'll also bet $1000 that the fundies will cling to rocks as being some sort of "petrified wood" and claim they have proof of the Ark, no matter how resoundlingly it is shown to be untrue.

	04-05-2004 17:10									#218
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quote: Free will is to be who you want to be and God should respect you for that.

On the other hand, who can tell if God follows the concept of man, God's is trancendent and omnipotent after all. Perhaps it's faulty to ascribe human thinking to God at all. But from this follows that the religious people that are telling what people should or shouldn't do are as wrong as the next as they are not able to comprehend or understand what God really wants. The relationship with God is then something 'personal' that's beyond morality or human logic. This is something I myself is more into, intellectually speaking of cource as I'm a non-believer.

	04-05-2004 19:04									#219
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I agree Kropotkin. I'm just having a dig at the christian concept of free will.

	04-05-2004 19:56									#220
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Actually, I posted almost the exact same post as you did some time ago regarding christianity and free will.

	04-05-2004 20:07									#221
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin Perhaps it's faulty to ascribe human thinking to God at all. But from this follows that the religious people that are telling what people should or shouldn't do are as wrong as the next as they are not able to comprehend or understand what God really wants. The relationship with God is then something 'personal' that's beyond morality or human logic. This is something I myself is more into, intellectually speaking of cource as I'm a non-believer.

The thing is -- how is it possible for one to tell whether one is really having a "personal relation" or "personal experience" with the Judeo-Christianity god? Given that a) this god is completely incomprehensible, therefore b) nobody has a prior frame of reference on distinguishing a "personal experience" with said god from wishful thinking and mere hallucinations.

	04-05-2004 20:19									#222
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I find it so amusing that atheists have this obsession with talking about God.
They don't feel compelled to speak on other things they don't believe in, like lepracauns.

	04-05-2004 20:28									#223
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UR: Well, I didn't say that it would have to be the judeo-christian God. But, yeah perhaps so. I wouldn't know as I haven't had any.

Slowwhand: The concept of God happen to be fundamental for western culture, history and even present day politics. And if you at the same time is generally interested in moral philosophy and history, like me, it's not that strange to think about the issue from time to time. Form that I don't exacly know what you base your idea that atheists in general are obsessed. Perhaps they've made an active choice to not believe has made somewhat more interested in the issue than that wast group of people that's just floating along, but I'm not sure that makes them obsessed.

	04-05-2004 20:32									#224
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God is not fundamental only to the western culture.
See, you need to talk about things you know, like lepracauns.

	04-05-2004 20:34									#225
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Mysticism/Religion is found in all cultures, so far as I know, but obviously given that we are a part of Western culture, it's religion's influence on Western culture that matters most to us. I saw nothing in Krop's post that indicated that he was trying to say that God wasn't fundamental to other cultures, Sloww.

Nice try, though.

-Arrian

	04-05-2004 20:34									#226
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Not only to the western culture, really? How nice of me to tell me that. I did not know that.

I don't know that much about lepracauns, never been to Ireland.

	04-05-2004 20:38									#227
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I misread. My apologies.
I still have this for you.

	04-05-2004 20:46									#228
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Thanks!

In sweden we have this little fellow instead:

	04-05-2004 20:49									#229
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What the hell is that?!?

	04-05-2004 20:52									#230
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That's a Brownie (don't blame me for the name, it's not I who came up with that translation)!

	04-05-2004 21:21									#231
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Brownie. Like in "Willow" ?

	04-05-2004 21:28									#232
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I have no idea as I don't remember much from that film.

A brownie is a little fellow that used to live beneath the house or in the stables. He usually took care of the animals and the farm in general. Worked fine as long as you gave him some porridge from time to time. But if you didn't or the brownie thought you missmanaged the animals, farmhands and maids or the farm in general he might get upset and do something drastic like posioning the animals or even burn down the farm.

The looks of the brownie was fused with the spirit of Sant Nicolaus by painters and artists in the 19th century and ended up as the present day Santa Claus ('the christmas brownie').

	04-05-2004 21:28									#233
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Here are Brownies.

Note the rat hat/cape. Marvelous hunters, are Brownies.

	04-05-2004 22:23									#234
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quote: Originally posted by SlowwHand I find it so amusing that atheists have this obsession with talking about God. They don't feel compelled to speak on other things they don't believe in, like lepracauns.

People usually aren't going around trying to tell me what to do based on what leprachauns tell them.

But your equation of God to leprachauns is noted.

	04-05-2004 23:26									#235
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I can't understand why anyone would read the Old Testament as a history book anyway. It's not like history in the sense we do it existed when most of that was written. A lot of the OT is pure myth, not in the sense that it's false but that it's frequently allegorical and uses events not as historical record but as a way of making a narrative relevant to the concerns of the people whom it was written for.

A lot of what is written in the Bible is probably based on fact, but the people who wrote it weren't primarily interested in providing a factual, linear historical record. In fact, if were able to ask them about that they probably wouldn't understand what you were talking about.

The Iliad has better historical provenance than the Bible. In fact it is startling how much of that story is true (not the monsters and crap, but the other stuff). But if you looked at the purpose the Iliad fulfilled in the culture of Ancient Greece, you would find that thinking of it as an historical record would miss the point - it's a unifying cultural narrative of a people that expresses their shared beliefs and values (and in the case of the Iliad is a commentary on the failure of those values).

	04-05-2004 23:34									#236
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This thread is quite entertaining

	05-05-2004 05:00									#237
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quote: I find it so amusing that atheists have this obsession with talking about God. They don't feel compelled to speak on other things they don't believe in, like lepracauns.

Thats because nobody actually believes in lepracauns, there is still people that believe in God and feel like shoving it down everybodies throats aswell.

quote: But your equation of God to leprachauns is noted.

Excellant analogy there.

Agathon I agree. The bible is in the same vein as Homer's Illiad, unfortunately people take the bible seriously.


I find it amusing how theists try to get people to believe in God yet they do not offer any rational/scientific proof that this God exists. I mean what arguments are there that prove that God exists?

	05-05-2004 05:42									#238
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quote: Originally posted by SlowwHand I find it so amusing that atheists have this obsession with talking about God. They don't feel compelled to speak on other things they don't believe in, like lepracauns.

Because there isn't a large body of people who believe that little Irish fairy things at the end of the rainbow created the universe and love us and if we don't worship them we'll burn for eternity.

	05-05-2004 09:58									#239
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Just to chime in my $0.02...

You don't see people pushing others to believe in lepracauns, or kill others because lepracauns told them to, etc.

	05-05-2004 10:00									#240
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Just to chime in my $0.02... You don't see people pushing others to believe in lepracauns, or kill others because lepracauns told them to, etc.