That sums it up.
God is not going to help you win your match!
- Thread starter tim913
- Start date
That sums it up.
I don't know, I haven't read it.
I`m sorry Neil, but you have disqualified yourself from this discussion.
You obviously know nothing about the subjects I`m talking about, you just get angry about the fact that I question your warm fuzzy feelings about God.
You see in contrast to you, I actually read OTHER books than the bible.
I have not mentioned archeology with a single word, as that is NOT what bible scholars do.
They look at the text and analyze the writing style, match it up to other know historical data etc.
No amount of archeology will ever prove or disprove the existence of Jesus, it`s been over 2000 years since the events described in the new testament is reported to have happened.
When you postulate a God and his son, Jesus is actually real, you are claiming some quite incredible things and i expect your evidence to be equally impressive! arguing that it says so in the bible is just stupid.
I`m asking you for hard evidence and for extra biblical sources to back up the stories about Jesus and many other events in the bible.
What`s next? you`r gonna claim Noha`s flood actually happened?
I'm not mad about anything, nice of you to make that up too. As far as being disqualified, I will now bow out, because you have made it abundantly clear that you have no clue what you are talking about.
This thread is destined for NPR so what the heck…
I can remember when the internet first got going full steam it seemed like the believers vastly outnumbered the non-believers (atheists, agnostics, etc.). It seemed like there was always that single atheist that was fighting an uphill battle all by his lonesome. It’s amazing how the tide has turned against the believers just in my lifetime. Heck, just in the past twenty years.
Making a case for Christianity is tough. It’s well beyond my limitations and I think it’s important for every man to know his. I can’t hang with the philosophers or the science guys in these sorts of discussions. They both have my utmost respect. Many of them have caused me to reevaluate my faith over the past couple of years. I think when people say nobody has ever changed their mind based on arguments found on the internet – I think they are dead wrong. Many people read things and think about them a great deal. The exchange of ideas is what is so great about the internet and AZ especially.
What I find so compelling about this discussion is that I may be in a very small minority of people that actually feels like they experience a touch of the divine when I play pool. I’m really not even sure what that means but I just often feel like this game that we all love was created just for me. It can so totally captivate and mesmerize me. There are just certain things in life where the one size fits all – evolutionary answer just doesn’t cut it for me. My love for pool is one of those things. As a matter of fact, I almost feel like a god when I’m playing it. The table is the vast universe and the balls are all a part of this grand cosmic plan that I have, and they must submit to my will. Okay….okay….that’s probably a bit much but anyway.
The only real argument I have left that the atheists can’t take away from me or anyone for that matter is a personal one. The conclusion I have come to is anytime that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, than there is room for God. I suppose the counter argument is that science just doesn’t understand everything yet, but in time they will. I don’t know. I do know that in matters of love and despair I just can't accept the evolutionary answer. The joy a person experiences on their wedding day or when witnessing the birth of their child. Or the horrible despair one feels when they lose a child or close family member. I don’t believe that even if you were given 4 or 5 billion years, you couldn’t create a being that could experience these emotions simply through natural causes alone. I suppose I could be wrong. But presently, I don’t think I am.
So, that’s pretty much all I got.
Having said that – God doesn’t give a rat’s a#@ about your pool game – so give it up already!
I can remember when the internet first got going full steam it seemed like the believers vastly outnumbered the non-believers (atheists, agnostics, etc.). It seemed like there was always that single atheist that was fighting an uphill battle all by his lonesome. It’s amazing how the tide has turned against the believers just in my lifetime. Heck, just in the past twenty years.
Making a case for Christianity is tough. It’s well beyond my limitations and I think it’s important for every man to know his. I can’t hang with the philosophers or the science guys in these sorts of discussions. They both have my utmost respect. Many of them have caused me to reevaluate my faith over the past couple of years. I think when people say nobody has ever changed their mind based on arguments found on the internet – I think they are dead wrong. Many people read things and think about them a great deal. The exchange of ideas is what is so great about the internet and AZ especially.
What I find so compelling about this discussion is that I may be in a very small minority of people that actually feels like they experience a touch of the divine when I play pool. I’m really not even sure what that means but I just often feel like this game that we all love was created just for me. It can so totally captivate and mesmerize me. There are just certain things in life where the one size fits all – evolutionary answer just doesn’t cut it for me. My love for pool is one of those things. As a matter of fact, I almost feel like a god when I’m playing it. The table is the vast universe and the balls are all a part of this grand cosmic plan that I have, and they must submit to my will. Okay….okay….that’s probably a bit much but anyway.
The only real argument I have left that the atheists can’t take away from me or anyone for that matter is a personal one. The conclusion I have come to is anytime that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, than there is room for God. I suppose the counter argument is that science just doesn’t understand everything yet, but in time they will. I don’t know. I do know that in matters of love and despair I just can't accept the evolutionary answer. The joy a person experiences on their wedding day or when witnessing the birth of their child. Or the horrible despair one feels when they lose a child or close family member. I don’t believe that even if you were given 4 or 5 billion years, you couldn’t create a being that could experience these emotions simply through natural causes alone. I suppose I could be wrong. But presently, I don’t think I am.
So, that’s pretty much all I got.
Having said that – God doesn’t give a rat’s a#@ about your pool game – so give it up already!
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TheThaiger
Banned
Yet so many wish that is one thing you would learn to do from me.
Aww come on, that was pretty funny...
Atheism: the belief that there is no Creator and that the world came into existence by some huge catastrophic explosion 600,000,000,000,000 years ago. Then evidentially monkeys came into creation by some cosmic happening that can't be explained and all humans then were derived from the monkeys and that's how creation happened. Yeah I'm gonna believe that over an all knowing, loving, Creator that gives me breath each day to live. What a sad, sad life some Of u live regardless if u believe it or not. With all due respect, I said SOME of you, not all of you.
Yet so many wish that is one thing you would learn to do from me.
I would love to play pool with you sir. Its obvious to me that I could learn a great deal from you. :smile:
where did he say you were mad? I missed it.......
Nice try !!!
Religious beliefs aside, when it comes to playing winning pool practice is the almighty.
Do any non believers believe in luck? Like carry a lucky rabbits foot or something. Won't step on a crack. I bet there are a few. What if someone told you that was stupid? Also a little like blind faith. So you might not believe in god but you might believe a rabbits foot will give you good luck. One could help to make you a better person even if you were wrong.
Atheism: the disbelief in the existence of god(s).
The big bang was not an explosion, nor was it 600 trillion years ago, nor does it have anything to do with belief or disbelief in god(s). Atheism was a concept long before the big bang was theorized.
You can believe whatever you want. Unless you have good evidence to back up your beliefs (you don't), your claims are just as (in)valid as Mormonism, Scientology, Greek Pantheism, etc.
Atheism, on the other hand, is the null hypothesis and requires no evidence because it is not a belief or claim at all.
You've muddled a belief in a Creator (or not), with other topics such as how we came to be (big bang? other? we don't know?), evolution... and followed it up with pity for people who don't agree with your beliefs. That's very childish.
Where do you draw the line at who you believe is living a "sad, sad life". Anyone who believes in ANY god or gods is living a good life? Or, only people who believe in the same god as you?
Either way you cut it, you have said that you feel billions of people are living sad, sad lives. Who knew?
Second sentence of post #164.
Actually, the fact your whole argument hinges on here is incorrect. Unless of course you mean "science has a very clear understandng backed up by an overwhelming amount of evidence of how life adapted and evolved from single-cell bacteria to multiple-cell organisms to primitive sea animals to fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals to primates to humans" when you say "monkeys came into creation by some cosmic happening that can't be explained and all humans then were derived from the monkeys and that's how creation happened."
Evolution and the Big Bang are backed up pretty well, and if someone tells you "it's only a theory," they are misunderstanding scientific terms. In the regular world, a theory is a guess that hasn't been tested yet and may be either correct or incorrect. In scientific terms, however, there is a different word for that - "hypothesis." Once you have collected a large enough quantity of evidence to prove to the scientific world that your hypothesis is correct, then it's not a hypothesis any more. It becomes a "theory," which means "a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is backed up by so much evidence, it is generally considered to be true."
So people who don't understand the difference between the scientific definition and the conversation use of the word "theory" get the wrong idea when they hear the phrase "theory of evolution." Just for comparison, here are a few other things that are called theories by science:
- If you drop something, it will fall. (Newton's theory of gravity)
- The earth orbits around the Sun (heliocentric theory)
- Living organisms are made up of cells (cell theory)
Evolution is about as likely to be proven wrong as gravity is - in other words, not very. HOWEVER, unless you have a much more strictly literal interpretation of the bible than most Christians and Christian leaders (pretty much restricted to the new wave of political protestant evangelicalism on the far right), it's pretty easy to accept both the Big Bang theory and the theory of evolution while still accepting your Christian origin story as well. Here's how it goes:
What do you think happened when God said "let there be light?" I would guess it was probably something like "a huge catastrophic explosion" that created the entire universe. One could even propose that the Big Bang theory actually supports the Christian explanation of creation.
As far as evolution goes, God created the world in 6 days, but are we talking about a day to God or a day to us? There's no way we can comprehend how a truly infinite being experiences time. A day to God could very easily be a trillion years to us, don't you think?
There you have it. Now you can believe in God without denying actual facts and proven science.
*Disclaimer: I am an atheist. I do not believe in the Christian religion or that there is/are a god or gods at all. I am very well educated on Christianity, though, and support your right to believe whatever you want. I just find it sad that so many people choose to ignore facts in order to protect their religion when it's silly and unnecessary. If science has proven over and over again that the sky is blue, it makes people think you're not very smart when you swear up and down that it's really orange with yellow stripes and green polka dots because you think god said so.
Lots of non-believers believe in luck. However, if you tell those people that the rabbit's foot is silly, they usually respond with "yeah, I know" and laugh with you about it. They don't honestly believe that stepping on a crack will actually beak their mother's back. They know it gives them confidence, even if it's not true, and they accept that.