<p>"Funny how atheists like you, demand to be treated respectfully for their beliefs, and yet you insult those who believe in God by blatantly trashing the Bible. Maybe you should reread your post before you start calling me ignorant. I don't care if you worship a shoe, don't trash something that means a lot to someone because you don't agree with what it says.
Two of my friends are atheists and they're extremely respectful of my religious views as I am of their non-religous views. I'm just happy to know that not all atheists are hostile towards believers, like you."</p>
<p>Wow. I don't "demand" to be respected by you. I don't care if you respect my opinion, just listen to it, just as I will hear yours. Criticize me, that's completely fine, as long as I can criticize you without hearing how I'm hurting your feelings. Here's the fact: I don't respect the bible. I hold no reason for it to be true. I have every right to ask why you would believe in it and give my ctriticizms of why I think it is illogical. Go ahead and do the same to me, stop trying to make it like I am out to get you and answer questions.</p>
<p>As to me calling you ignorant. Um, did you not read what you wrote? You blatantly said that all people who claim lack of belief in god suddenly believe in a higher power when there is a tradgedy in their life. That's wrong and ignorant. Pretty simple reason.</p>
<p>sauronvoldemort, your whole argument of God being beyond logic is not a good one. That is a complete cop out to a discussion. That's like writing down "I don't know" for an essay question on a test and being upset when you fail the question.</p>
<p>And with Cwatson, I completely agree with you that someone who is a true strong Atheist is just as stupid as the person who is a strong theist. I call myself an Atheist because I have no reason to believe that there is a god, but at the same time leave the possibility of their being one open. I probably lean much more towards the agnostic mindset as opposed to the radical atheist "God does not exist for sure" type of attitude.</p>
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sauronvoldemort, your whole argument of God being beyond logic is not a good one. That is a complete cop out to a discussion. That's like writing down "I don't know" for an essay question on a test and being upset when you fail the question.
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<p>Writing I dont know would be agnosticism. But the agnosticist would not be upset, he would know he didn't know the answer and should get a 0. Religion would be writing an illogical answer to the question and being suprised when you failed because you believed the answer was right. And, when the theist sees the question again, he continues to right the same answer and continues to fail.</p>
<p>Sauron's argument reinforces the notion that god is an illogical concept.</p>
<p>For those of you who are religious do you take the bible literally?</p>
<p>When you claim to be part of a certain religion is it about following the religion's teachings to the best of your ability, or believing in certain key elements of the religion?</p>
<p>I ask this to have a better understanding of what it really means to say you are part of a religion even though I think I can predict the answers I will recieve.</p>
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The Bible is arguably the best literary work of all time. Happy?
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<p>Sorry, I think there are better books out there. I mean, it's certainly a good book, and it has literary merit, but it is not the greatest book of all time.</p>
<p>And while I certainly understand the logic of the "it's just as stupid to completely disbelieve in the possibility of a god as to completely believe" argument, I feel like agnostics are copping out by saying, "I don't know." If you have convictions, stand firm in them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Bible is arguably the best literary work of all time. Happy?
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</p>
<p>Its ability to pursuade the common man is phenominal. It has the type of brilliant pursuation I would liken to Hitler's. To mobilize a people without having to prove your pretenses is just incredible genious of which I'm envious. We wouldn't be on the tenth page if I could persuade that well.</p>
<p>(I'm no historian and not sure if Hitler only moved a minority of the 33m in 1930x Germany)</p>
<p>[PC]He was a persuasive genious, but also a phsycotic. I am envious of his pursuasiveness, not his physcosis.[/PC]</p>
<p>The World, universe, and galaxy we live in is far to functional for there not to be some sort of extra-universal power, aka God. Concept and design necessitate an intelligent designer. The presence of intelligent design proves the existence of an intelligent designer. It's simply cause and effect. In our search for proof of God's existence, we could examine the various claims of supernatural occurrences, determine whether or not these are legitimate experiences, and build a case for the existence of the supernatural, which would be a step towards identifying a supernatural Creator God. Or we can just apply what we already know and search for signs of intelligent design within creation itself. </p>
<p>We know that design necessitates a designer. In fact, in accordance with this fundamental axiom, design detection methodology is a prerequisite in many fields of human endeavor, including archaeology, anthropology, forensics, criminal jurisprudence, copyright law, patent law, reverse engineering, crypto analysis, random number generation, and SETI. And how do we recognize intelligent design? In general, we find "specified complexity" to be a reliable indicator of the presence of intelligent design. Chance can explain complexity alone but not specification -- a random sequence of letters is complex but not specified (it's meaningless). A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified (it's meaningful). We can't have a Shakespearean sonnet without Shakespeare.</p>
<p>You cannot say that as a human. We have such a narrow view on the natural that we do not know if this is the "intelligent design." You are also very pompous in assuming that humans are a better species then past species. We are different, not neccessarily better or more intelligent (on a universal scale).</p>
<p>You presume the supernatural to be the epitome of human type intelligence which reinforces the idea that "god is man's blunder, not man his." (cite philosopher importante)</p>
<p>The design achieved now can be attributed to randomness (which I have yet to see a good proof for, whatever happened to cause and effect?), which is the opposite of intelligence (it being predictability and patterns; the human definition).</p>
<p>A fairy tail is more meaningful to a 3yo than e=mc^2, what is more meaningful overall? It's all subject.</p>
<p>I understand your argument, however, I cannot logically reason that there is no god, when everything has to be created. This universe we live in cannot just have appeared.</p>
<p>confiding in blind faith in times of sadness/hardship seems like a much better thing to do then turning to other vices such as drugs, alcohol, etc. </p>
<p>personally, im agnostic, but i respect anyone who can really put all there trust in one idea (god, jesus, bible, koran[sp?], torah, etc) like that.</p>
<p>The probability of the origin of life by accident is beyond all reason. To illustrate probability, we may line up two objects, A and B in two orders, AB or BA. Three objects may be lined up in six different orders. (The formula for calculating the number of ways n objects can be arranged is 1</p>
<p>Huey you asume that God inhabits the same universe as us. In our space-time everything must have a creator, however, whats to say this basic idea that everything must have a creator applies in other space-time.</p>
<p>What's to say that in another space-time water freezes into apple pie? </p>
<p>All we can go off of is the laws of this universe. The rest is pure speculation and wishful thinking that there is more to life than this world.</p>
<p>The answer to the question of origin is: we don't know, being that knowledge must be a result of the devices we have. I am absolutely and undeniably right.</p>
<p>bucs, how would you argue that probability (randomness) is a legitmate cause and not a mask for the ignorance of underlying causes. It directly violates cause and effect?</p>
<p>Your first sentence makes no sense. You speculate there is no god, with no facts to back it up. Stephen Hawking one of the most well respected scholars of our time has concluded that there must be alternate space-times.</p>
<p>Agreed. The fact is we may never know why or what caused life, and for some reason people feel the need to fill this lack of knowledge with "God"(their own god of course in most cases, as if there is only one beleivied in in this world).</p>
<p>You speculate there is a god, with no facts to back this up other than "it must be". I'm not denying other space-times, but you are making up their rules to fit your idea of how the world came to be.</p>