Would it do any good? Ultimately, there's a way for everyone to come to a knowledge of the truth about God but it's not in the way you, he, or others who think like you would have it. What's more, people like you and he really don't want to come to that knowledge. You're more comfortable in thinking you've figured it all out on your own. It's why the Bible, as well as other scriptures, are a closed book to you. You trust in your own judgement, and the learning of man, rather than looking to He who made you.

With your reasoning I doubt it. I was merely pointing out that what you said was just the repetition of what he said, not an argument.

Let me further explain what fault I find with your reasoning.

I say there is no God. You can't back your argument with scripture, when clearly I don't believe in God in the first place, let alone a God who you suggest has sent some sort of scripture. How do you know this is the same work of that said God? Then you say everyone knows there is a God. But here I am and I don't think there is one. The burden of proof falls upon the person who suggests there is a God.

I think we need to make a distinction here between the concept of "God" and the harsh reality of organized religions and so-called "scripture."

No one can deny that there are ultimate ideals such as Truth, Love, etc., but whether these ideals exist in the person of a "God" or for that matter in the persons of "gods," is something else.

There is no question that humans have always looked beyond themselves to find answers for the imperfections of life, and in doing so, most hope that there is a way to make sense out of senselesness. IMHO this has always given rise to stories and fables about greater powers which somehow fashion our destinies.

This search is demonstrated by the thousands of "god-stories" that have existed through history. The polytheists of the west, among whom the best known are the Greeks (followed by the Romans) and the Norse, had these gods who got themselves involved in human life to the extent they altered it to suit their purposes, sometimes in opposition with one another. With the development of writing I think these models became unworkable and we went from polytheism to monotheism, as exemplified by the beliefs of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Still, however we cannot ever totally escape our pagan origins, and thus we have things like the trinity (three gods in one) the veneration of Mary (a goddes of sorts) and various rituals including bodily mutilation (circumcision) and dietary restrictions which are considered to be "godly" and somehow a means to separate ourselces from the randomness of things.

All three major religions in the West have been through countless iterations and reformations, and thus claimants to the "true faith" within each of these belief-sets which are often at war with one another (See, e.g. Sunnis and Shiiites, Catholics and protestants, Reform and Orthodox Jews).

through this lens it is difficult to believe that the fairy tales we have had passed down from the ancient texts which form (but are not the Bible, Torah, or Koran) are to be taken literally. I mean talking snakes? arks with every species on board? flying horses from Medina to Jerusalem?

What I am saying is all these strictures of the various religions are created by people who all claim some special knowledge of "God," which I think is a lot of nonsense.

This business about the priest refusing communion to a gay woman is a perfect case in poinnt. Who is this priest to assume she is not in a state of grace? Maybe she went to confession the day before. In doing what he did he assumed he was god-like, which in and of itself is a sin under the laws of the Roman church (it is called "presumption."

As this and other similar threads go forward, I would hope people make a distinction between religious institutions and the eistence of some kind of divine being(s).

Very great post DT. However, I'm not sure why we need the distinction between two concepts that are equally at fault here. Believing in a divine being is ground for many injustices. For instance, people think others deserve their lot in life, because there's a divine being that makes sure people get what they deserve. Or that their good fortune is because they have been great human beings and equally whatever bad happens to them is some kind of test. It's that sense of righteousness that is not constructive for a society.

I agree ASF that no one has the right to say he or she is better off, or that someone else is worse off because of he nature of his or her faith. that is all preposterous.

All I am trying to say is we need to distinhuish between the faults of humans i.e. what you point out, or the existence of religions, and the possible existence of SOMETHING that is beyond us. Personally I struggle with a great deal of spiritual issues, and while I am prepared to renounce all organized religion, I am not prepared to renounce the existence of some kind of divinity. I personally believe such a renunciation is as idiotic as the sureness with which some people say there is absolutely nothing more what what we can see.

Ex-fucking-actly!!!!

The Atheists who are absolutely sure of the fact that there's no God are just as obnoxious as the holy rollers who insist there is. We'll all find out soon enough. I'm in no damned hurry, and arguing about it during life here on earth is pretty pointless.

Of course no one can be sure. But then again, as Russell pointed out, one can claim there's a very small tea pot somewhere in space that no one can see and they can't prove there's such a thing, but you just have to accept it faithfully that there is. Atheism is not the state of being sure there is no divine being that's responsible for our existence. It's the state that we need more than just blind faith to accept there is a God and until then, we have no reason to believe there is.

It is for some people, AFS (and you know I'm certainly not talking about you ).

But guys like Hitchens took it so far that in its own way, it was an extreme form of religion in itself. For some people, it's an almost politically extreme brand of Athesim, if you will.

Every group has their extremists, there's no denying that. I once heard him recite a poem that was certainly rude and he credited to an old persian poet/mathematician who sure was an atheist by the looks of his poems, but he certainly was not disrespectful of others. And that poem was not the translation of his works. What can you say, we all can be at fault no matter what our positions.

Absolutely right about the positions. My wife is always faulting me because I won't get on top anymore.

I did walk right into that, didn't I?

Wait a minute! You mean your wife will let you do any of that? My wife told me that we used up all of the positions and there's no use in doing that again.

Better you walked into it than backed into it, because some people here believe that that kind of lovemaking is a sin .

True that PB!

Ok, I get it, God personally called you last Monday and you both had a conversation for two hours how he hates them homosexuals.


Ok, take it like this. The bible says you are not allowed to eat meat for that time of the year. What you do? You don't eat meat, because the bible says. You practically do everything religion says you to do, that way you're being manipulated.

And this isn't about me thinking who I am. I respect religion, I take my mother to the church, because she wants it. But I'm not a part of it. I just think that we as a human are the only one in the whole world who can control our lives. Everything you do is your own fault, not because God wanted it to happen.

Just like you say religion is against homosexuals. So, what has a person done there wrong if he is in love with another person? That's not a sin in my eyes, no matter how'd you try to convince me what the bible says. As a sin I take murder or doing something bad to someone, that's a sin.

And religion should change first, as an example pursue and prosecute all those pedophile priests not cover them up. And even covering them up is a bigger sin than being a homosexual, in my opinion.

Just wanted to say something about that homosexuality matter.
I have always been neutral towards homosexuality in a sense that, even though I personally don't like it, I never forced my views on others and don't consider homosexuals as inferior people. But I once saw on a forum a Catholic 14-year-old user being ganged up, insulted and treated with extreme arrogance by homosexuality supporters (who are not homosexuals themselves, at least that's what they say) just because he stated he personally agreed with the statement from the Bible that homosexuality was a sin. It must be said they were headed by the admin of the site who proudly stated he didn't believe in God, but behaved himself in such an arrogant way, as if he thought he himself was God who can never be wrong under any circumstances, not just about homosexuality. I intervened, trying to be as polite as possible and said being rude to others is wrong under any circumstances as long as the insulted ones aren't rude themselves (and this user wasn't, believe me) and stated my position (more or less the same that I said to you in the first sentences of this post. The fact is that not only excrements were thrown at me and I was later banned, but the admin even started spreading rumors on the forum that I have been banned for continuously harassing another user through PMs (I have sent to this user only one PM in my life, which contained only a polite request to make peace after a previous argument).

So, imagine what can I think about the so-called "homosexuality supporters" now that I have seen what methods they use (at least those of them whom I came into direct contact with).

Why am I telling you this? Because I think that the modern society is falling into extreme just like in the middle ages, only in another aspects of life. While then the Church was often wrong in the past, many of the today's "human right advocates" behave themselves in the same manner. If they pretend to be right, they should use different methods from whom they despise.
Otherwise, it's would be like turning racism (or any other prejudice for that matter) backwards and start saying that whites are inferior than blacks just like before blacks were said to be inferior than whites.

I mean, everybody should have the right to stick to their opinion without being looked upon as an enemy. But no, many people want to be absolute winners and crush and humiliate the other side.
I don't know, maybe many people who proclaim themselves Christians are intolerant or even violent too, but if I speak from personal experience, I found the opposite side much more aggressive for the most part (I am not speaking about the users in this discussion on this forum).

Well, that's one of your main problems right there. Believing the burden is on others, if not God Himself, to convince you. Neither God, or believers, are on trial regarding your beliefs. You are.

To automatically reject scripture is another big problem. Especially when I'd be willing to bet you've never really studied the scriptures, let alone understand them.

But even if we set the scriptures aside for a moment, I'd argue that everything around us is a sign that there is a God. The uniqueness of life on this earth. How the planets move in their revolutions. The times and seasons. All things testify that there is a God.



This is one of the worst fallacies atheists believe - the idea that various Pagan beliefs predate Christianity. And that Christianity is just a rehashing, of sorts, of those old Pagan stories. This is completely backwards. It reality, it's the other way around.



Why is that nonsense? Sure, it may be untrue coming from some of them. Or a lot of them. But are all of them liars? And what are you basing this on? Simply because YOU don't have a special knowledge of God?



The priest knew that she was living with a woman. It doesn't take God to see she was certainly not within a state of grace. I think you would have just preferred he "wink" at her situation and let her take communion.

I don't think the burden is on God, remember, I don't believe in God. I said once and I say again, if I'm the one that claims there's something and then expect everyone to believe in that, it's I who has to prove such a thing exists before expecting others to take me and what I say seriously. I don't care if each and everyone in the planet say it is so. Saying doesn't prove much. I need tangible evidence.

You are trying to say that this apparent design and complexity in world needs a creator. I respectfully disagree. As for the movements of planets, you could see once in a while a stray asteroid colliding with another body. Things are in sync till they aren't. Once they are not, they either concur and bring about a new world order, or go extinct. Same goes for creatures that are born everyday. There were once dinosaurs, but then the earth's order changed and they couldn't cope or change their environment and went extinct. Or look at a kid that's born with two heads, there's no design in that. It's as random as a coin toss. Either it works with this order, or changes the order in its favor, or goes extinct. There's nothing smart about this design that make me think there's a creator. A million other people could've been born instead of me to my parents. I don't consider me being here a divine intervention. To me, it's a random incident. So is this world.

Funny how there's a thread about God up right now and we are discussing this matter in this topic.

No, not exactly like that. And nobody said God "hates" homosexuals.



Oh, how I do love when the non-believers misquote the Bible in order to make a point.

Where in the Bible does it say one shouldn't eat meat at a certain time of year? The law of Moses certainly forbade eating certain kinds of meat. But that was done away with with the coming of Christ. Catholics, from my understanding, do abstain from meat on Good Friday but that's out of tradition and not specifically commanded in the Bible.



I'd be the first to agree that we all have our free agency, and so are responsible for our own choices. But it's not like our free agency and the existence of God are mutually exclusive.



It may not be a sin in your eyes but you're not the one who gets to make the rules. Frankly, even God Himself doesn't make the rules either but also has to obey eternal law.



Agreed, though they're both sins.

Whoa! The bible's restrictions on diet were abolished by Christ? I think not. The Last Supper was a Passover Seder complete with the unleavened bread still used at communion.

The bible forbids the eating of pork, shellfish and it prohibits having a glass of milk with meat on the side. The New Testament never did away with that.

I mean show me in the gospels where it says "This is the New ovenant. Go have a ham sandwich."

I still don't understand what's the problem. Even it still was really strict about food, it's not like the Church forces anybody to join. And besides, as far as I know, if a person is ill or has lifelong health problems, they are allowed to eat meat no matter when. I am an Orthodox Christian though, so maybe in other churches it's different, I don't know. As I get it, some temporary restrictions on food were originally introduced to prevent people from being gluttons (not a bad recommendation for their health in my opinion).

Read the book of Acts chapter 15, especially the Jerusalem Council letter to gentile churches. I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not but if you read the letter, there's restriction on food sacrificed to idols, blood, and meat from strangled animals. These were the only restrictions on food.

This is part of your problem. You say if God doesn't prove Himself to you in just a certain way, you won't believe. You narrow the goal posts so much as to basically excuse yourself and your disbelief because you know it won't happen like that.



The coming of Christ fulfilled certain requirements in the Law of Moses, including all the dietary ones. Many of the strict day-to-day things in the Mosaic Law were given as a lesser law to the Israelites after they had rejected the higher law (which Christ later brought) during the golden calf incident.

Christ participated in the passover, which had always been a type of His eventual sacrifice. But what did He do immediately after that? He introduced the sacrament. Once the sacrifice of the true Lamb of God was complete, there was no need for passover anymore. From then on, the observance of His atonement would be through the sacrament.



Yup. This is what I'm talking about. If people don't want to believe in the Bible, that's one thing. But it gets really old when these non-believers attempt to discredit the Bible by misquoting or misinterpreting it. The vast majority of them have never read it, let alone even have the most basic understanding of it. They simply have heard certain anti-Bible talking points from other non-believers and they regurgitate those.

I clearly said I don't believe in God, let alone expect him to prove himself. But if you need to say a nonsense in there as your last word, so be it.

And you said you won't believe unless you get tangible evidence.

Which means a concrete evidence, which again you failed to show me one as to why there has to be a God.

And I'm saying there's a way to know just as surely as anything. But it's not in the way you want. And it doesn't come to anyone who has the attitude you do.

What's my attitude has to do with this? If existence of God was a universal fact, my attitude would have been beside the point.