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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
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.
