Well, it was all man-written. Everything in the Bible was written by men, over the course of thousands of years ago, so, the earlier being the Old Testament. So, why am I not Jewish? Simple.
I like the idea of bacon and condoms.
You' re just picking what you like and ditching the rest. You want to know why you like condoms and bacon? Because your parents aren' t Jewish. Like majik was insinuating, we' re a product of our environment. If you were from a different time/place you' d believe in a different god. When a society dies so does the myth.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ahWFiaGATnY Many of these dieties have characteristics that contradict that of others.
Ok. If you really want to, why not?
So, my first question, do you believe that any of the words of Jesus, not necessarily in their entirety, have some sort of value to a civilized society? There are plenty of atheists who, while not agreeing with his divinity, agree that Jesus existed, and wasn' t a liar, a nutjob, or a con-man. Are you one of them?
I believe that Jesus was one of many self proclaimed Massiahs in his time. He was a successful mascot for his cult, nothing more. He borrowed a lot of ideas that outdated him by hundreds of years. Nothing he said that made sense was original. Cults are made probably on a daily basis, Scientology is a cult. We laugh at it because we see how plainly stupid it is. The reason a religion like christianity gets respect is due to the history and culture attached to it. To an atheist, Christianity is no more logical than Scientology. Give me one shred of evidence to support Christianity over Scientology.
Stalin did alright for his time.
Sorry, I was talking about American politicians when I said politicians don' t stand a chance unless they' re a christian with a family. I was talking about the voters.
Huckabee is a tool.
At least he' s honest about being a tool. The other one' s are mearly pretending.
You talk about the financial corruption present in religion. Let' s see some numbers.
Why would I have any numbers? Go to Rome and look at the churches there. They have buildings everywhere on the globe. Any Corporation with buildings spread out globally has money. ***ing McDonald' s, they' re an Empire.
If our purpose in life is merely to survive, why do we have cognitive ability so much greater than the organisms around us?
Evolution. We evolved from apes that lived in trees. The trees dissapeard due to environmental changes and the apes had to become hunter and gatherers. Circumstances promoted competition and the apes with the most intelligent were given the advantage to procreate. We simply were not physically adapted to the new environment. Our distant ancestors didn' t have claws or the ability to run fast. They had thumbs and sticks. Snowball effect. Even today, the most intelligent have an advantage.
abstinence.
Fair enough if you want to avoid having a child. Notice I never mentioned you, a 16 year old probably shouldn' t be ***ing around anyways. But that' s not he real reason is it (Rampage)?
If there' s any other reason then fine, it' s his life. But I think he mentioned he had to get married first. That' s just sad. Even if you believe in god, I can tell you right now. God doesn' t give a shit if you get married before sex or not. Why would god want to control a human being. Would we want to control an ant? If there was a god it would not even notice the human race, that' s how unimportant we are in the grand scheme of things.
What if you' re wrong.
Well as Majik said, Hell does sound a like a better party. More importantly, did you know that originally in Christian doctrin there was no Hell? They originally said an atheist and sinners have no soul and thus when they die they cease to exist just as an athiest expects anyways. This wasn' t frightening enough so they added Hell in a revision. So I' m going with the original story and assume that I have no soul. Either way it makes no difference for me.
But logic and respect means nothing in the end.
But you already know survival is futile and meaningless.
Yep, doesn' t mean I' m not right. It' s all relative. I never said we should care about survival, I was mearly describing the engine that drives life. I' m not saying I have an ultimate answer either, I' m just saying we' re here. An atheist doesn' t need to answer why.
Really, if your views are correct, my religion isn' t doing anything to hinder me or anyone else. It' s just a way to cope and pass time. In the end it all means nothing if death is finite anyway so there' s really no argument.
Asimov said something to the effect that it' s illogical for an atheist to argue over religion. Same reasoning you just used. It' s true, we have no good reason to care. I' m just killing time. That being said, I' m not going to let you use that as an argument. You support big claims explaining existance and providing purpose and even guidlines for behaviour. I' m saying you owe me big evidence.
< Message edited by agent ghost -- 6 May 08 21:08:59 >