Izzy

Sh*t. I need to be leaving the house and probably shouldn't waste any more time with Bran.. but.. Haha, whut? Bran, you do realize if you would have been born in India or Africa or something, you're opinion would be completely different, right? It's impossible for you to have 'always loved the Lord' because you had to be introduced to him first. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your parents did the introducing, and if not, continued teaching after you found out. Because of the way Christianity is set up, indoctrination is brainwash whether it's intentional or not. brainwash - make (someone) adopt radically different beliefs by using systematic and often forcible pressure The radical belief, Christianity. The systematic pressure, Bible. The forcible pressure, fear of Hell and going to church. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Oh yes, I'm jealous. I'm entirely jealous. I'm jealous I can't have a magical fairy man that wants me to devout my life to him. I'm jealous that I can't believe all random murders of children are part of some divine plan. I'm jealous of looking forward to death. </sarcasm> Are you jealous that little kids still believe in Santa? (If you are, that's pretty immature.)

The fundamental difference is that what I'm saying is true, whether the majority of people realize it or not, while what Bran was saying was an actual insult. Calling someone a 'sad pathetic wretch' is entirely different than saying something along the lines of 'Christians brain wash their children through childhood indoctrination, and intelligent ones escape'. I've been saying that throughout this thread and several others. It isn't an insult, it's mere observation of what's going on.

There, fixed it for you.

My emphasis. I'm offended.

I don't think the universe(s) can/have always existed, because then there's little difference to say some supreme ruler has always existed. I don't know what I believe, but that doesn't mean I won't look for the answers. For me, we definitely started with nothing. (Maybe empty space has always existed? Because that's not really anything existing, just a big vast of nothingness. Then, in this space, particles and antiparticles started forming, because they could. And of course, everything else falls into place. Or... maybe everything has just pure energy. But.. energy was really nothingingness. Just like an essence, it was there, but not there, didn't do anything, yet had the potential to do things. Typing as I think, this is probably incoherent rambling. Going to click the post button anyway. *edit* Color

You're not fooling anyone. You're clearly avoiding posting any sort of response because you can't come up with one. You see the validity in our arguments, but don't want to face the truth. How long have you been online now? The above was posted half an hour ago, some of your other stuff several hours ago. *shrugs* Maybe not all the time in the world, but definitely a good percentage of your day.

That's what you think. You wouldn't know what life is like without God because you haven't tried. The majority of atheists are perfectly happy, just like the majority of theists are.

Lol, maybe 'cos we've had like billions of years to evolve?

Have you ever read any sort of physics/chemistry/space science textbook? Ever? Black holes are possibly 'portals' into other universes. Obviously, we don't coexist in more than one universe. Well, I suppose we could, but most physicists tell me the multiverse interpretation of QM is shite. But yeah, assuming we're a daughter universe of another one (which is VERY likely, because when suns more than ten times bigger than ours explode, black holes are formed, which may lead to other universes, as I said), something still had to start the initial big bang. However, if there's literally nothing sitting there for infinite time (which, it's hard to think of time in this context, but bear with me), eventually something was going to happen. Even if the odds are 1000099999999999999..... to 1 against us. I also read something pretty good about the possibility of life somewhere else. Okay, so there are roughly 1023 stars in OUR universe. Planets must be in a certain 'Goldilocks Zone' for life to evolve on them. Clearly, it's possible, *points at us*. So, I just spent like half an hour trying to find the original post, but couldn't. It's something like, there's a hundred billion stars. Of those stars, over half are close enough to our fairly average sun, meaning they're able to form planets. Divide that by the possibility of one of those planets being able to fall into the Goldilocks Zone, life must have arisen on at least 10000 planets independently. (Bah, I really need to find this post. Does anyone else remember it? It was genius, and really explains what I'm failing to explain a lot better.

Stop there. What complete bull sh*t. Why should something exists until 'scientists get smarter'?! If scientists get smarter (there's already more than enough evidence out there to show that God is utter nonsense), then God wouldn't have to be there in a first place. That's like me saying this invisible pink unicorn of mine exists until you prove it can't. No. It doesn't exist until I prove it does. There rest of your argument is bull too. It's been covered so many times I really don't even want to bother anymore.

:lol: Definitely.

There is a fundamental reason, basically, keep changing what you're religion believes in, and people will start to doubt you. Imagine if the Christians kept changing their mind about Jesus. Or God's abilities and personality. That 'religion' sounds a lot like science.

In the future, Christianity will undoubtedly be regarded as funny stories and ridiculous myths. That's not to say morals weren't involved, as practically all fables and tall tales include them. All you've proven is that Christianity has survived longer than the Greek's religion (what was it called anyway?). ..Well done? (I think it may have to do with geographics and population. An entire continent believing in essentially the same thing, plus the middle east (Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam are pretty much the same thing) will have their belief last longer than one country believing something else.

If you're annoyed, no one is asking you to read them. No one's suggesting you spam the thread with rude hints either. *hint, hint* (...) *edit* Oh noes, I'm terrified by what Bran, presumably your brother, can do to me. The shock. The horror.

Eh, the Atheist Discussion thread got bombarded a bit. Also, come on, you're being over sensitive. There's practically no debating going on. People are discussing things.

*browses thread* *sees lots of 'Jesus', 'God', 'Bible', and random bull* Yeah, fairly sure.

Oh, alright. We all know how lovely the God of the OT is anyway. (I own that t-shirt people, be jealous.) Bran, so Judaism was around the time of the Greeks, what's your point?

I'm actually kind of happy my parent's decision to let my baptizing be my own choice (not baptized). My dad was raised fairly religiously (and now has pretty strange views that I'm not going to get into..), but my mom was just a bit whatever. Believed, didn't care. (Atheist now, I've done some influencing. ) I was talking to my dad a while ago (parents divorced), and he mentioned something about baptizing his next kids, if he ever has any. I think that's a ridiculously stupid thing to do, give them the choice, but whatever. I highly doubt he's going to have another kid (mostly because I refuse to give up my only-child status), but if it comes, I might step in. This isn't really Christian, albeit more American stupidity, but ex-Jewish male atheists have my condolences... Another decision I'm going to leave up to my future kids.

Bran's obviously done his research.. 1.Greek mythology has no morals? What? Midas : don't be greedy. Daedalus and Icarus : don't be guilty of pride and forget you are a mortal man. You are no god, even if you can fly. Icarus forgot, causing him to fly close to the sun, have the wax melted, and die. Prometheus : again, a moral man dared to aspire to the power of the gods, and suffered the consequences. Anyway, I could go on, there are many more, but those should be alright for now. 2.Christianity started about 2000 years ago. According to this essay, the Greek religion developed about 1200 years before that. They did NOT occur around the same time anymore than what's happening now should be relative to what happened in the year 1000 c.e. 3. Their religion has obviously taught those people how to behave so well. Among others. See 0:36 - 0:46 in video. Christianity teaches morals, right? 4. Meh, whatever. The US still wasn't founded on Christianity. Have you even read the Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Any of our primary governing documents? I was going to post my own argument, but this guy explains it better. I really don't want to write another post that takes me like an hour to have it not responded to. ;P 5. ...And these justifications are? *edit* URL tags.

I don't remember making my desire to improve religion public? 'Improve' in my mind, in this case, has a very different definition than what would be considered on par with the current societal norm, and far from PC. Infer what you want from that, but no, my intention is not to build on religion, making it some awesome, great thing. 'Barbaric discussion' is the polar opposite of what I predict this thread becoming, mainly because I recognize intelligence, even in you, and doubt the maturity level of this thread's participants will fall so low to the point of petty insults. Clearly individual findings and observations will be included; that practically goes without saying. What else would be base our arguments on? Uh-huh. So what about the Crusades then? Or early America's belief of Manifest Destiny? The 9/11 and 7/7 bombings done in the name of Allah? Belief in gods were established because of scientific ignorance. They were theories and philosophies, that answered questions science wasn't able to at the time. Maybe not the most plausible explanations, but they held up. However, by the time science had a chance to step up and point things out, religion was such a big part of most people's lives, they weren't going to give it up. Denial of evolution is essentially the same thing as refusal of the model of a heliocentric solar system. Basically, 'My religion doesn't believe this, and it takes away from my species being special, having everything revolve around us and being placed here with a purpose. I don't like that very much, so I won't listen.' Evidence please? Link to original prophecy and how it was supposedly fulfilled? Why do you have to assume someone caused it? I'm not going to pretend I know all the answers for this, but here's some speculation. We began with nothing. I suppose 'nothing' can be thought of like empty space, just void or everything. Now, somehow this nothing became really dense, causing it to go kaboom. We know all the energy in the universe cancels out to 0, because of energy and anti-energy. So, somehow (we'll know this eventually) just a very tiny bit of energy formed, disturbing everything, creating the universe's first particles. Eventually, these formed into suns, planets, etc., and everything we know now falls into place. A spontaneous origination of a few particles is a lot more feasible than some overwhelmingly complex god. I live life for life. I enjoy being here, even though I realize it's pointless. Life is beautiful, intricate, amazing. What do you live for? Oh right, you await death where you worship your god eternally. Fun stuff. Again, not insulting. Debating. If an argument is better than another, than that must mean something. Generally speaking, if claims can constantly be disproved, from whatever party, then that proves something. No, religion formed this country. With Manifest Destiny, we invaded foreign lands, slaughtered innocent natives, and did everything in our own best interest because God gave us the right to do so. I don't exactly know where you're from, but if you're in the US, remember the early colonists left England in search of religious freedom. I couldn't find a map showing the Christian areas at the time, but this should show that Christianity isn't all this country has. It never was, it never will be. This again? The majority of atheists were raised religious. We dismiss one more god than you do, because we can get over childhood indoctrination and think rationally. I don't need to understand every aspect of religion (though I have read the Bible) to realize it isn't worthwhile. Learn to enjoy life for what it is, not for how you'll be welcomed in the after life. Religion wastes lives dude. Are you serious? Are you actually serious? You think the Bible is the basis of all our morals? Humans behave themselves, for the most part, because we're social creatures that have evolved with a conscience. Laws would be here whether we were religious or not. Killing would still be illegal, not because you'd be banished to Hell, but because it just isn't right. "If you believe in my pet flying unicorn, even though you can't sense him in anyway and he won't show himself, he'll give you good luck. But he might not, if he doesn't it's just part of his divine plan." Only one third true. I do like these threads. I like to see people think and I enjoy debating. Learning and knowledge aren't cruel, they're just not something the church likes.

I've started this thread to have a permanent place for all arguments religion-related. That way they can stop popping up all over the place, and thread won't get locked for being off-topic. I have to leave for school, and will contribute more when I'm back.

Now, I know were not meant to go around interpreting the bible (), but there are some other ways to think of this. For instance, 'as' can mean 'while'. So it might actually be against adultery, not gay stuff. I've also heard that some Biblical scholars think the "thou shalt not lie with a man as with a woman blah blah" line is about homosexual rape, not consensual sex. It was all the rage back then to rape everyone, men included, when you pillaged a town. Jus' saying.

Heh... The Spiritual World thread got locked, oops. Anyway, I thought the discussion was interesting, and would love to continue, maybe in the appropriate thread this time. If possible, can the mods split the old thread starting here? My original topic title was "Atheism vs. All: Debate Style", but I figured it could be hilarious interesting to having people claim why ____ is better than _____, possibly educational as well. Common courtesy applies in this thread. Remember to attack the arguments people post, rather than the people themselves. If you're going to tease someone, do so cleverly. I'd like to pick up from where we left off, but anyone can feel free to start us off. NO PREACHING. No threatening with Hell because of disbelief. If I see any of that, I will ask to have your post removed.

...Baby eating not alright then?