808state

Could you point me in the direction of verifiable first hand accounts? Well, there are a lot of possibilities with the story of Jesus. The writers of the Bible could have "fleshed-out" his character a bit, if you know what I mean. It's hard to say. Liars and lunatics can still have something worthy to say. Also, If Jesus did say everything the Bible says he did, we don't know what his motives were.

Right. I'm sure many of these people claimed to be "miracle workers" of some kind. There were a few gods in ancient Greek religion that claimed to be miracle healers (including raising people from the dead). He seems to be saying, in a poetic way, that he is the only real nourishment man needs for salvation. Once they start "feeding on him" or following him, they will have eternal life.

Thank you for the link. Much appreciated. As for the other questions, I dunno, there have been other religions that have lasted a pretty long time and that were presumably thanks to one man (For example: Buddhism and Islam). I figure, at the end of the day, in order to believe all of the supernatural aspects of Jesus's story, one would first have to have faith in the Bible. I don't have faith in the Bible, so I don't believe any of the supernatural aspects of his story. Bless you, Buddha and Muhammed are bth dead and remain so. However, Jesus Christ lives. I asked you a question in another thread now closed. You stated that you didn't have faith in the bible then too. However, when asked you stated that Jesus was a man but didn't believe that He was Supernatural. You answered partially about some of the things He had to say. I'm wondering if you feel that some of the things He had to say have some merit or are worth following or living out? Were they Righteous? Say something like; Mt 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Peace, Dave Yeah, I think he had some good stuff to say. Certainly.

Thank you for the link. Much appreciated. As for the other questions, I dunno, there have been other religions that have lasted a pretty long time and that were presumably thanks to one man (For example: Buddhism and Islam). I figure, at the end of the day, in order to believe all of the supernatural aspects of Jesus's story, one would first have to have faith in the Bible. I don't have faith in the Bible, so I don't believe any of the supernatural aspects of his story.

I don't know how to answer this question, especially without potentially offending anyone. So, can anyone point me in the direction of some accounts of Jesus outside of the Bible? Because, honestly, outside of the what the Bible says, I don't know much about him.

That's a good point. I was under the impression that once you were saved and became a follower of Jesus (Truth) that he would lead you to the true interpretation of the Bible. But it does seem to be a rare thing to find two Christians that agree on every single interpretation of every line in the Bible. So, once you seek the Biblical God, how do you know what is the right and wrong interpretation of the Bible? At that point, are good intentions what matters?

I think to suggest that one or even a series of events can change a person's sexual orientation is actually too simplistic. It's too on the surface. I would say what's mostly likely the case is that sexuality in general is actually a lot more complicated and layered. People's orientations are probably determined by a complex mixture of things, perhaps both biological and environmental. But to say that societal influences or traumatic events can change or determine one's sexual orientation, I don't think so. Say, for example, a young girl was abused by a man and she grew up to be a lesbian. I could understand that experience traumatizing her enough to be fearful of getting into a relationship with a man as she got older, but I don't see how they could create a real attraction to women. She would just view women the same as she ever did, the same as any other straight woman. I actually think if you look at the idea of child abuse or some other negative experience being able to to make an individual attracted to the same-sex, it's really an idea born out of ignorance and personal bias. Now, this take a little bit of thinking objectively, and the "you" isn't anyone in particular, but I have a theory: As a heterosexual individual, when first confronted with the idea of homosexuality, your initial reaction is usually going to be disgust. It's not an idea many are used to. Then you question how they could possibly want to be with someone of the same-sex. And, naturally, as a heterosexual individual you can only draw from your own experiences in this regard, what would it take for you to become gay? Now, again, as someone who simply can't understand how anyone could possibly want to be with someone of the same-sex and might even be disgusted by the thought, you're not going to think it was born out of a positive experience. You're not going to think that they're gay because someone really amazing of the same-sex that magically "changed" them. You're naturally going to think it was because of something negative. They must have had someone really treat them horribly as a child to be turned off of the opposite sex. But this whole idea is really just born out of the fact that because we aren't attracted to the same-sex, we can't imagine someone someone else actually being attracted to the same-sex. We can imagine really negative experiences that could push a person to not want to be around people of the opposite sex in an intimate way. This is obviously a large generalization, and obviously not all straight people feel this way about homosexuality but I'd still say this is a relatively common and influential point of view. Now, I'm just arguing that homosexuality could really just be apart of one's nature, and considering human nature, as far as the Bible is concerned, is indeed a sinful nature, I don't understand why many Christians are so hesitant to accept that. It doesn't mean that they have to accept homosexuality. It can still be a sin, whether or not being gay is natural to a person isn't going to change that.

I find this response really interesting. I've had close family members who were dying, and their faith was what helped get them through. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. I do get angry with certain Atheists who seem pretty driven to take that away from people when they need it. That said, different people find different paths in life and reasons for living. Different things that they as individuals feel connected to. For some people that may be religion, for others it may be music or family or simply life itself. It's really up to the individual. The idea that religion is needed by all people who are going through rough times is just not true. Some people simply find another way of dealing with their problems that doesn't involve religion. I've also seen Atheists approach death as well as other hardships, and they had other things to get through that obviously didn't involve religion.

It's not so much skepticism as much as is just being cautious with the theory. I fully accept that tomorrow, the theory could be disproven. I accept that with anything. But as of right now, I'm not that skeptical. "As a biochemist and software developer who works in genetic and metabolic screening, I am continually amazed by the incredible complexity of life. For example, each of us has a vast 'computer program' of six billion DNA bases in every cell that guided our development from a fertilized egg, specifies how to make more than 200 tissue types, and ties all this together in numerous highly functional organ systems. Few people outside of genetics or biochemistry realize that evolutionists still can provide no substantive details at all about the origin of life, and particularly the origin of genetic information in the first self-replicating organism. What genes did it require -- or did it even have genes? How much DNA and RNA did it have -- or did it even have nucleic acids? How did huge information-rich molecules arise before natural selection? Exactly how did the genetic code linking nucleic acids to amino acid sequence originate? Clearly the origin of life -- the foundation of evolution - is still virtually all speculation, and little if no fact." "As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry -- and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and "tweaks" the reactions conditions "just right" do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area." http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/scientists/ Abiogenesis is still a big question mark, scientists accept this. That really doesn't have any effect on Evolution like these guys seem to think it does. We don't know much about the origin of life. People have different ideas. But the question of how life came to be doesn't really effect the theory of Evolution. The theory of Evolution only concerns how life grew once it was here.

I agree. I don't follow everything conservative Christainity proclaims. A lot of it, but not all. Ironically though, those who call themselves 'sceptics' seem to have no scepticism whatsoever about evolution. Even though there are tons of anomalies, lots of mysteries not yet understood and lots of scientists who are sceptical themselves. The scientists that have signed onto Dissent from Darwin are merely sceptical about Darwinian theory yet they come under fire like crazy from the present day scientific elitists - as if they are some kind of all-knowing gods to say that you cannot be sceptical of darwian theory! How dare anyone be sceptical! And a lot of atheists who call themselves 'free thinkers' blindly follow what Dawkins or Talk Origins says without question. They have some kind of blind faith and trust that Dawkins and this website have all the answers and hold the entire truth of the universe, I don't think this is entirely true. Certainly there are many people who find websites that support their ideas, and then use them as their main source of information without doing further research on their own (not a good idea) on all side of political, religious, and scientific discussions. But I think the issue is that, much of the criticism Evolution draws is from people who don't seem to have a big grasp on what the theory of Evolution is to begin with. Even looking over the "Dissent from Darwin", a couple of the people quoted on the website seem to be confusing abiogenesis with the theory of Evolution. Abiogenesis is not apart of the theory of Evolution, it is not it's "foundation." There's nothing wrong with being skeptical of science, even science is skeptical of science, but it is important to know what you're talking about before you criticize (though then again, I could probably do with following that advice from time to time as well).

Ok. I'll give a real answer now. I think it was a gradual realization as I got older. Also, I think I figured out the tooth fairy wasn't real a bit before and that made me a bit more skeptical. I think I was about 9 or 10 when I fully realized that Santa wasn't real. I don't remember being upset at all.

Santa's not real?

I don't believe it is. Not by people who have a relatively good understanding of science and how it works. It is in these debates, though. I think that many atheists/agnostics regard science as the closest thing we have to Absolute Truth or discovering it. That's what I believe anyway. But if they actually think science represents Absolute Truth then they're wrong.

Then why is it treated as such? I don't believe it is. Not by people who have a relatively good understanding of science and how it works. "... in science there is no 'knowledge', in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth. ... This view means, furthermore, that we have no proofs in science (excepting, of course, pure mathematics and logic). In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by 'proof' an argument which establishes once and for ever the truth of a theory." Sir Karl Popper, The Problem of Induction, 1953 "If you thought that science was certain

If this is all human are, why is murder wrong? Or what hope can you give to those who are destitute? I think you can probably break morality down into what benefits and doesn't benefit the human race. And this is decided by the fact that human individuals naturally react to certain events in either negative or positive ways. For example, the loss of a loved one usually brings on negative feelings in you average human being. If everyone was allowed to go off killing whoever they wanted whenever they wanted, everyone would be miserable. Society wouldn't be able to function that way, and humans are social beings. So, eventually, if people wanted their own individual happiness then society as a whole would have to think of a way to make that work.

I think an important thing to point out is that usually it's science debunking science, right? Also, science doesn't claim to be Absolute Truth like the Bible does to begin with. And certainly there have been passages in the Bible that have been interpreted in many different ways over the centuries. So, while the Bible in it's purest form may represent Absolute Truth, perhaps the human understanding or interpretation of it is relative just like the human understanding of how the world works is relative?

Oh my. That would depend on who's interpreting the law, and most Muslims don't condone killing of nonbelievers so I don't think there will be anything to worry about in that regard...unless Western Atheists all of a sudden decide to make a mass exodus to the Middle East, which I also don't see happening.

There are definitely many Atheists who do enjoy indulging in religious arguments while trying to boost their ego at the same time. But I wouldn't say they make up the majority. They make up a lot, yes. But not most, I don't think. A lot of them do hold the belief that all religion, specifically Christianity for America, is a detriment to society. So, that might give you a clue as to why some Atheists act so aggressively. But I've met Christians who are the same way though, especially toward Muslims. It's funny, they'll make the same type of arguments against Muslims that Atheists make against Christians.

I think most of the time when atheists make negative comments about "God", they're speaking about him like he's a fictional character in a book...which is pretty much what they believe anyway. I don't think speaking negatively of God based on stories in the Bible automatically means the person actually believes he exists. It would be like disliking a character in a movie, except this character has had a huge influence on the world and how it works. That said, I have known atheists that lost their faith in religion after going through some negative experiences and I've known theists that found their faith in religion through negative experiences. And then I've known people on both sides that came to their conclusions on faith and religion through more "rational" methods as well. Different life experiences are going to draw people to different conclusions, and I'd say for most people it's going to be a mix of the heart and the mind that draws them to those conclusions.