The Politics/Religion/Conspiracies Deathmatch Thread

[joel31]

my first thought were the terror acts on abortion clinics. seems there is much more in countries not on the radar of strayas media.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_terrorism

please don't turn a minority who aren't following biblical principles into a picture of what Christianity is and stands for.

Much like how a few fundamentalist Muslims doesn't mean that all muslims are evil and advocate murder of non-muslims

[snake]

please don't turn a minority who aren't following biblical principles into a picture of what Christianity is and stands for.

Much like how a few fundamentalist Muslims doesn't mean that all muslims are evil and advocate murder of non-muslims

[snake]

It isn't a matter of morality. Morality is relative to a persons belief, I'm not going to tell you whether you're moral or not moral.

But to God all sins are the same except denying him

so you don't believe in absolute morality? how wonderfully unchristian of you

[snake]

As I said not my place to convince you. It is in a book read it and think about it and make your own mind up.

Thing is with my religion you have the choice to decide which way you want to go. Contrast that with another religion where you a forced into submitting to it with aggression force and hate and face death if you don't comply and believe.


Yet for some reason you atheists see Christianity as a bigger threat despite our tolerance to your views and the lack of tolerance from this other religion towards your views. Go figure the hypocrisy in that

jesus told you to make a disciple of me. don't disobey jesus, his dad's kinda real jealous and vengeful

i don't come across too many muslims, certainly not on the foz. i'm just playing the cards that are dealt. as i've said before, you're both nuts.

[snake]

Your up shit creek and the murderer is in.

You failed to believe he did

fmd some club this is

no wonder the cathos are able to protect all their kiddy fiddlers with a straight face with a rule book like this

[snake]

Attending church and bible study groups.

Reading the bible.

Doing google searches on things that interest me as i hear/read them.

Talking to people of varying belief systems.

why the bible though? why not the quran? the torah? the book of mormon? dianetics? do the cargo cults have a book? serious question.

at the risk of turning this into a false dichotomy, have you read anything from the other side?

you're an engineer, right? you can appreciate the predictive power of scientific theories, then. what if a great number of these theories contradicted the bible (i'm not talking about your engineering ones)? the bible cannot therefore be inerrant as it is claimed. why then consider the rest of it seriously?

[The Dunster]

The hardest part about an Engineering degree is backing up after the nine beers and four bucket bongs you are required to induce in between lectures.

[pv4]

why the bible though? why not the quran? the torah? the book of mormon? dianetics? do the cargo cults have a book? serious question.

at the risk of turning this into a false dichotomy, have you read anything from the other side?

you're an engineer, right? you can appreciate the predictive power of scientific theories, then. what if a great number of these theories contradicted the bible (i'm not talking about your engineering ones)? the bible cannot therefore be inerrant as it is claimed. why then consider the rest of it seriously?

Why the bible - because i read a few stories i believed truly did happen. So i delved further. I don't just plan on looking into the bible and christianity but it sure is a start.

[GazFish35]

Yet for some reason you atheists see Christianity as a bigger threat despite our tolerance to your views and the lack of tolerance from this other religion towards your views. Go figure the hypocrisy in that

I'm missing where the atheists see Christianity as threat.
I'm just seeing atheists questioning the logic of faith.

[joel31]

Out of interest what evidence do you rely on to suggest it isn't crap?
Not digging, genuinely interested.

- The reliability of the bible. The bible has been compared with ancient manuscripts (which there are more of than pretty much every other text in history) and has found to have barely changed since its original writing. Also the NT was written quite closely after events so people who were witnesses would be still around to correct it, if they believed it was false
- There is historical evidence pointing towards Jesus existence as a man and supporting biblical events and thus reliability of bible
- The complexity of the universe: IMO chance could not have produced this complexity.
- The universe: something can't come out of nothing. There needed to be a catalyst to start its creation whether it came from the big bang or otherwise
- why are there uniform laws of nature? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."
- People in the early church who KNEW Jesus were willing to die because they were so convinced that Jesus was God and their saviour. If they weren’t absolutely convinced then surely they would admit it was false and save their lives
- Un-Darwinian sacrificial actions of humans and moral conscience - How could have humans developed a conscience and sense for morality if the universe is meaningless and it is all about survival of the fittest.

I'm happy to elaborate if wanted on historical evidence, etc

[GazFish35]

Why the bible - because i read a few stories i believed truly did happen. So i delved further. I don't just plan on looking into the bible and christianity but it sure is a start.

Can I genuinely suggest you seek to understand local indigenous understandings of the world.
Some truly amazing and inspiring systems of knowing exist in one of the world longest continuous cultures.

[joel31]

I'm missing where the atheists see Christianity as threat.
I'm just seeing atheists questioning the logic of faith.

You must admit though atheists have faith too.

[GazFish35]

- The reliability of the bible. The bible has been compared with ancient manuscripts (which there are more of than pretty much every other text in history) and has found to have barely changed since its original writing. Also the NT was written quite closely after events so people who were witnesses would be still around to correct it, if they believed it was false
- There is historical evidence pointing towards Jesus existence as a man and supporting biblical events and thus reliability of bible
- The complexity of the universe: IMO chance could not have produced this complexity.
- The universe: something can't come out of nothing. There needed to be a catalyst to start its creation whether it came from the big bang or otherwise
- why are there uniform laws of nature? As Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."
- People in the early church who KNEW Jesus were willing to die because they were so convinced that Jesus was God and their saviour. If they weren’t absolutely convinced then surely they would admit it was false and save their lives
- Un-Darwinian sacrificial actions of humans and moral conscience - How could have humans developed a conscience and sense for morality if the universe is meaningless and it is all about survival of the fittest.

I'm happy to elaborate if wanted on historical evidence, etc

I've no doubt JC lived it's the whole "son of god" thing I struggle to understand people's faith in. No disrespect.
Happy to be corrected but wasn't the NT largely written a few hundred years after.... Except some of the early stuff..... And if the timeframe you suggest is accurate, it'd be pretty easy to explain an inability to have things edited by way of rates of illiteracy and the literates being the ones in power.

I'm still to be convinced these early documents, and their translation/interpretation where not massively subject to political grabs for power and control of populations either by the church or whatever feudal/democratic system may have existed at any period of time, and is still happening today.

I'm sorry, but the "his disciples believed him and were willing to die" can be pretty easily argued against by looking at some modern day cults that saw leaders convince their followers that they too were some heavenly incarnation and many followers being willing to die in their name too.



Humans are largely two things, gullible or greedy, as we've become more literate and educated as a species the influence of the church has wained..... I'm not calling anyone of faith to be gullible, you have listed a number of points I've not got an answer to, I suppose what I am saying is that I can't help but think the greed of those in power has always played on the gullibility of the masses of populations they sought to control and all religious texts are being written, interpreted and re-written by power hungry people wanting to remain in power.

[GazFish35]

You must admit though atheists have faith too.

A faith in the absence of deities?

[Bremsstrahlung]

Quick question, have we fixed/increased our Bandwidth? It's gonna be a long festive period (of working) if the Foz is down...

[The Dunster]

[furns]

Quick question, have we fixed/increased our Bandwidth? It's gonna be a long festive period (of working) if the Foz is down...

We have plenty of bandwidth mate, no chance current levels push us over the edge

[parksey]

[pv4]

Can I genuinely suggest you seek to understand local indigenous understandings of the world.
Some truly amazing and inspiring systems of knowing exist in one of the world longest continuous cultures.

I think that going to Peru and learning even a small part of what the Incans believed is what kind of put me on this journey tbh.

[Bremsstrahlung]

We have plenty of bandwidth mate, no chance current levels push us over the edge

Excellent, carry on.