The fraught was not a mistaken word, that was yours :) You later fixed the 50 to 150, as well as changed fraught to fought. Trouble remembering your own words now?
Didn't tell him off, simply said it was sad that a grammar nazi got 2 likes. I would be equally sad if my posts about how poorly you communicate got any likes. My problem is that you can't even admit that your messages are less than clear. You quote soulcarverr twice, use the reference you 5 times, and yet don't get why he would respond as if you were talking about him. Your ignorance is only surpassed by your arrogance it would seem.
Have at it though, I'm sure you know much better than all of us about everything.
Hmm I think we both know you dont want to believe in God, thats why you`ll look for every avenue of excuse or irrationality to cloud your reason and logic. Why is that?. Thats ok and your business. As I said before, you fulfill bible prophecy though. Keep it up with getting intelligence and knowledge(always a good thing), since Im sure you think of yourself as a pretty smart guy(Not saying you`re not).
@Gradius12: Go@Gradius Jesus also advocates child abuse, beating slaves and murdering those who don't believe as you do. .
You lost your argument and all credibility right there.
GG thread. Like SoulcarveRR, I guess Im also done now.
And whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.Mark 9:42
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."Matthew 19:14
When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.Mark 10:14
Not even going to bother with addressing your other lies. Its pretty clear you dont know the bible(as well as many other things). Cant take any atheist serious here(They dont even know their own broken/beliefs well enough). Well, good luck to ye.
Hmm I think we both know you dont want to believe in God, thats why you`ll look for every avenue of excuse or irrationality to cloud your reason and logic. Why is that?. Thats ok and your business. As I said before, you fulfill bible prophecy though. Keep it up with getting intelligence and knowledge(always a good thing), since Im sure you think of yourself as a pretty smart guy(Not saying you`re not).
You're dead wrong here.
I would love to believe that if I played my cards right, I'd live forever.
I would love for there to be a single rational reason to believe such a thing to be true.
There just isn't any convincing evidence that it's true.
It's no coincidence that Jesus never spoke up against slavery but only endorsed it. As for child abuse:
1) In Matthew 15:4-7 Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the commandment: “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”
2) Jesus asks that you leave your children for him. This is child abuse. Matthew 19:29
3) Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children according to Old Testament law. Mark 7:9
4) "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26)
Once again, this so-called "most perfect book of all time" gets thrown into the garbage bin where it belongs. There are much better fictional books out there with much higher moral standards. The three little pigs is a good one.
And whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it
is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he
were cast into the sea. Mark 9:42
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14
When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He
said to them, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the
Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. Mark 10:14
This is irrelevant because it's nothing more than cherrypicking the good parts of the bible to conform to western moral practices while ignoring all the evil and violence you find in this bronze age book. Things such as being nice to animals, equality of women, etc. are something that has emerged within the past hundred years. Morals are something that is debated using rational thinking and our own evolved internal moral compass. It does not come from your book. You twist your book to FIT our highly developed morals.
Since when does religion have anything to do with proving something to be true or not......
Its just like me saying "Killing other people makes you a bad person." maybe I dont agree with that, what exactly is a bad person. Maybe I think its ok to kill people. eh
You cant "prove" that it makes them bad people. Cause then you would have to define "bad". But what is bad. It is just an opinion.
Why bother quoting the bible........
It was written a thousand years ago.
Most Christians do not take the bible literally. Why you would is beyond me.
Your arguments are that people are stupid to believe anything.
Yet all you do it nit pick what the bible says.
When most Christians don't even know what the bible says.
I don't really understand the point your trying to make.
I agree that religious texts should not be taken literally... if that's the point your trying to get across? But all I get from you guys is that you have a fervent hate for Christians. Most christian dont give a damn what you think of them. sooooooo
So you guys hate Christians.... is there anything more your trying to get across.
I don't hate Christians or anyone of any faith. Yet you do. Good for you.
4) "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26)
Like to point out that the word hate does not mean what you think it means here. It was the best fit translation of its original meaning. What it really means in this case is to love less than. So using this kind of thinking, I love my wife and hate my children would be accurate. Not that this is true using the words as we know them, but it is very important to understand what the words meant at the time, or what words they were translated from. Your other cherry picking quotes aren't even worth acknowledging.
For being so against cherry picking, you certainly excel at it :)
Like to point out that the word hate does not mean what you think it means here. It was the best fit translation of its original meaning. What it really means in this case is to love less than. So using this kind of thinking, I love my wife and hate my children would be accurate. Not that this is true using the words as we know them, but it is very important to understand what the words meant at the time, or what words they were translated from.
Uhm, what's the difference there buddy? I love my family deeply. If a man walked up to me on the street and told me to love him more than I love my family, I'd tell him to go screw himself. It makes no difference that it's from a book 2000 years ago. In fact, that makes it even worse. If you love some random man more than your children just because he told you to, you're a crappy parent guilty of neglect.
Quote:
Your other cherry picking quotes aren't even worth acknowledging.
For being so against cherry picking, you certainly excel at it :)
Did you have a legitimate point to make or are you just here to join in the trolling along with SoulCarverr? I eagerly await your response for why those children deserve to be executed. "Child abuse" can mean a broad range of things, including neglect. Stop being so pedantic. Your playing of devil's advocate for religion was nice at first but now it's just getting sad.
So? We also enjoy more freedoms then you.. and have more people, The more people you have the more deaths.
Very simple.
Sheogorath already rebuked the second point, but I'd like to take on the first as a side-discussion. You say you enjoy more freedoms than us. I actually sincerely doubt that. Name me some. Is the fear that there's a decent chance that a person you get into any kind of fight with might pull a gun on you a freedom? And what else is there the US has that the EU doesn't in terms of freedom? I can't think of anything, only more evidence to the contrary by pointing out the looser drug policies we have in my country.
No process discovered in the universe thus far requires a god. Any god. Any process. Not one.
What you're doing is just filling in a gap in human knowledge with your god.
...
No religion can present repeatable, lab-testable proof of their deity. Fact.
I found this post particularly interesting Eiviyn, and it begged a question for me; what is your view on science, exactly? I'm asking because what you described up here holds true for a LOT of things we do all name as 'science' daily. Economics can't present repeatable, lab-testable proof; all they have is models. Same for psychologists. This holds true for pretty much all social sciences, really. You very much come across as a naturalist (as opposed to a hermeneutic) to me, which makes perfect sense in light of the above argument. Even as a naturalist, though, you stumble across problems when answering the question of God sooner or later, be it in the process of induction or in the process of falsification (neither which is possible [yet] in the case of god). Which would logically lead you to be agnostic, I think? And does that also mean you completely reject all non-biological human sciences?
P.S. Not to sound elitist, but I have literally no idea how well versed you or other readers are in the philosophy of science. I'm still trying to make sense of it myself. Do say so if something sounds odd or off.
Hrrrmmm, being told to stop being so pedantic by one who himself thrives on details. Not that I can say anything against being pedantic. If I were to stop being pedantic, I would no longer be me. I enjoy going over details, noticing small things, or at least I have learned to. I notice them all anyways, so why not enjoy it? I make no attempt to refute that is a main character trait of mine, in fact I call it an asset.
Moving onto other things... It is obvious you are looking for answers, but I am pretty convinced that you refuse to listen to any given here. Any answer less than you somehow being right and the religious nuts being wrong will result in yet another post, demanding some answer to another Gradius12 cherry-picked riddle of the Bible. I think EternalWraith has done a pretty conistent job on providing answers according to scripture to many of your questions, yet you keep coming back with more and more. If you are so certain we are wrong and you are right, why do you keep at this?
I have no doubt a response will immediately point out, especially by yourself, that I didn't answer your questions. This is true, I won't answer them, as you will not listen. I pointed this out many pages ago in this thread, that no one is willing to listen, and it remains true. Why try to educate those who already have it all figured out about religion as you do. Obviously we should all be looking to those such as yourself for ultimate truth and wisdom, right? Forgive the sarcasm, but the atheists of sc2mapster are proving a terribly arrogant lot, at least those who are keeping this thread going.
As for Soulcarverr, well there isn't a lot to say about his posts on here. He announced he was going to troll at the very start, so the fact that he is doing it should be no surprise. I would agree his grammar is atrocious, I almost think he does it worse on purpose to bother people. Despite his quirks though, I think he has done a fine job of pointing out the amazing amount of hypocrisy occuring on this thread, even if there is about 1 spelling/grammar error per sentence. He is crazy for sure, but still makes a good point that the atheists posting here are exactly what they claim to hate most.
Have fun picking apart this post in any case, I honestly doubt I'll keep up with this thread much longer. Say what you like about me or my religion, but I'm happy with where I'm at and who I am. Can you honestly say the same? I'll simply leave you with Matthew 11:25, as it describes your problem rather well. Can't keep overthinking everything forever Gradius :)
I found this post particularly interesting Eiviyn, and it begged a question for me; what is your view on science, exactly? I'm asking because what you described up here holds true for a LOT of things we do all name as 'science' daily. Economics can't present repeatable, lab-testable proof; all they have is models. Same for psychologists. This holds true for pretty much all social sciences, really. You very much come across as a naturalist (as opposed to a hermeneutic) to me, which makes perfect sense in light of the above argument. Even as a naturalist, though, you stumble across problems when answering the question of God sooner or later, be it in the process of induction or in the process of falsification (neither which is possible [yet] in the case of god). Which would logically lead you to be agnostic, I think? And does that also mean you completely reject all non-biological human sciences?
I'm a biochemist, or someone who studies chemistry in biology.
Your examples are things which involve people. You may as well have said "If I get 100 people to guess a number between 1 and 10, why can't science predict it?" It probably can, but not to much accuracy.
Economics follows the above. It can be studied, but at the end of the day it's inaccurate because it's based on what people do, rather than what nature does.
Nature is consistent. People are not. This is why, as you say, social sciences are less predictable than natural sciences like chemistry, physics and biology.
As for Soulcarverr, well there isn't a lot to say about his posts on
here. He announced he was going to troll at the very start, so the fact
that he is doing it should be no surprise. I would agree his grammar is
atrocious, I almost think he does it worse on purpose to bother people.
Despite his quirks though, I think he has done a fine job of pointing
out the amazing amount of hypocrisy occuring on this thread, even if
there is about 1 spelling/grammar error per sentence. He is crazy for
sure, but still makes a good point that the atheists posting here are
exactly what they claim to hate most.
Since your guys' cause is already hopeless enough I'll give you a tip. Religious fervor and religious trolling are indistinguishable. It serves my cause more to treat him like like he's being serious, because nobody can tell the difference anyway. Soulcarver is an atheist factory.
The only thing he's done a good job at is explicitly ignoring the posts I've made. It's easy for him to come in and say "lerl, I am going to troll this thread guyz," but I think I'll just continue treating him as if he's an idiot in real life, because he probably is. That's the sad thing about religious extremists.
Quote:
I think EternalWraith has done a pretty conistent job on providing answers according to scripture to many of your questions
Which one was your favorite? I particularly enjoyed "it's not genocide, it's just god killing evil people (and the children/animals because God is too incompetent to think of a simpler solution)". Or "it's not rape, it's people taking away wives from their bad husbands so they can be taken care of!"
Quote:
Say what you like about me or my religion, but I'm happy with where I'm at and who I am. Can you honestly say the same?
Ah yes, "Ignorance is bliss." I tried that for 17 years. Trust me, it's nothing to be happy about. Do not mistake my discontent with religion that it so justly deserves as my attitude with life in general. In fact, I have a greater appreciation for the universe and my life now than I did when I was a theist because I now realize that this is the only chance I get. What are the odds that you were born? They're astronomical, and you should be thankful to have been born into a scientific and economic golden age. For tens of thousands of years before this, every human fought tooth and nail to survive and died young. We enjoy luxuries such as never seen before.
Quote:
Obviously we should all be looking to those such as yourself for ultimate truth and wisdom, right? Forgive the sarcasm, but the atheists of sc2mapster are proving a terribly arrogant lot, at least those who are keeping this thread going.
Nowhere did anybody say that. You are simply offended that people question your faith. This picture cannot be posted enough:
The religious right simply has too much power. So long as people such as yourself continue to enable this and associate criticism and skepticism with "arrogance", innovation will continue to be dragged down and anti-scientific beliefs will continue to dominate. Senseless killing such as this will continue forever: http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html
That is, unless we kill IT at its heart through intellectual discourse. Your question should not be, "why are atheists pissed off at religion?" Your question should be "after all that religion has done to repress humanity, why am I the one that's not offended?" And you should also ask yourself whether the transient comfort it provides you is really worth the welfare of future generations, or whether you even care or have the foresight to think like this, given that you care more about heaven in some imaginary afterlife as opposed to creating one here on Earth.
Mark 11:25
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Grad, what you show there in your interpretation of the words has a point. People misquote things, and when a mob has come to believe that women wearing jeans is damnable to hell, there's clearly a problem. I forgot what its called but it's a problem of theology with which many things come up that become contentious, this is why the core of the message must always be established prior to any dissection. It's a huge undertaking to be a preacher, and must not be taken lightly. Afterall, Gangnam style spread like wildfire for some reason other than the lyrics I'm sure.
Intent drives the message, ergo, we have so many denominations. You make a good point there.
Eiviyn, I don't know much about the world of Biology but this seems interesting. What are your thoughts on this:
It speaks about irreducible complexity.
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I missed a 1 in "150". If that's the best retort to my claims that you have then I'd quit now really.
@Eiviyn: Go
I'm not discussing your claims right now, I'm discussing your poor communication skills, try to keep up.
Can you go fail at arguing grammar elsewhere? This is about religion.
@Eiviyn: Go
The fraught was not a mistaken word, that was yours :) You later fixed the 50 to 150, as well as changed fraught to fought. Trouble remembering your own words now?
Nice dodge. Error quoted. Too bad. Even funnier since you told Barrin off for being a "grammar nazi".
Now for something slightly less stupid; Pope says atheists are responsible for global warming
@Eiviyn: Go
Didn't tell him off, simply said it was sad that a grammar nazi got 2 likes. I would be equally sad if my posts about how poorly you communicate got any likes. My problem is that you can't even admit that your messages are less than clear. You quote soulcarverr twice, use the reference you 5 times, and yet don't get why he would respond as if you were talking about him. Your ignorance is only surpassed by your arrogance it would seem.
Have at it though, I'm sure you know much better than all of us about everything.
You're being pedantic.
@Eiviyn: Go
Given the definition of that word, thank you :)
@Eiviyn
Hmm I think we both know you dont want to believe in God, thats why you`ll look for every avenue of excuse or irrationality to cloud your reason and logic. Why is that?. Thats ok and your business. As I said before, you fulfill bible prophecy though. Keep it up with getting intelligence and knowledge(always a good thing), since Im sure you think of yourself as a pretty smart guy(Not saying you`re not).
@Gradius12: Go @Gradius
Jesus also advocates child abuse, beating slaves and murdering those who don't believe as you do. .
You lost your argument and all credibility right there.
GG thread. Like SoulcarveRR, I guess Im also done now.
And whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. Mark 9:42
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14
When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. Mark 10:14
Not even going to bother with addressing your other lies. Its pretty clear you dont know the bible(as well as many other things). Cant take any atheist serious here(They dont even know their own broken/beliefs well enough). Well, good luck to ye.
@Eiviyn: Go
LMAO
You're dead wrong here.
I would love to believe that if I played my cards right, I'd live forever.
I would love for there to be a single rational reason to believe such a thing to be true.
There just isn't any convincing evidence that it's true.
@EternalWraith: Go
It's no coincidence that Jesus never spoke up against slavery but only endorsed it. As for child abuse:
1) In Matthew 15:4-7 Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the commandment: “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”
2) Jesus asks that you leave your children for him. This is child abuse. Matthew 19:29
3) Jesus criticizes the Jews for not killing their disobedient children according to Old Testament law. Mark 7:9
4) "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26)
Once again, this so-called "most perfect book of all time" gets thrown into the garbage bin where it belongs. There are much better fictional books out there with much higher moral standards. The three little pigs is a good one.
This is irrelevant because it's nothing more than cherrypicking the good parts of the bible to conform to western moral practices while ignoring all the evil and violence you find in this bronze age book. Things such as being nice to animals, equality of women, etc. are something that has emerged within the past hundred years. Morals are something that is debated using rational thinking and our own evolved internal moral compass. It does not come from your book. You twist your book to FIT our highly developed morals.
Since when does religion have anything to do with proving something to be true or not......
Its just like me saying "Killing other people makes you a bad person." maybe I dont agree with that, what exactly is a bad person. Maybe I think its ok to kill people. eh
You cant "prove" that it makes them bad people. Cause then you would have to define "bad". But what is bad. It is just an opinion.
Why bother quoting the bible........
It was written a thousand years ago.
Most Christians do not take the bible literally. Why you would is beyond me.
Your arguments are that people are stupid to believe anything.
Yet all you do it nit pick what the bible says.
When most Christians don't even know what the bible says.
I don't really understand the point your trying to make.
I agree that religious texts should not be taken literally... if that's the point your trying to get across? But all I get from you guys is that you have a fervent hate for Christians. Most christian dont give a damn what you think of them. sooooooo
So you guys hate Christians.... is there anything more your trying to get across.
I don't hate Christians or anyone of any faith. Yet you do. Good for you.
How about you guys get to mapping.
Like to point out that the word hate does not mean what you think it means here. It was the best fit translation of its original meaning. What it really means in this case is to love less than. So using this kind of thinking, I love my wife and hate my children would be accurate. Not that this is true using the words as we know them, but it is very important to understand what the words meant at the time, or what words they were translated from. Your other cherry picking quotes aren't even worth acknowledging.
For being so against cherry picking, you certainly excel at it :)
Yeah, you have worse reading comprehension skills than a six year old.
Me: "but I do not blame these people"
Uhm, what's the difference there buddy? I love my family deeply. If a man walked up to me on the street and told me to love him more than I love my family, I'd tell him to go screw himself. It makes no difference that it's from a book 2000 years ago. In fact, that makes it even worse. If you love some random man more than your children just because he told you to, you're a crappy parent guilty of neglect.
Did you have a legitimate point to make or are you just here to join in the trolling along with SoulCarverr? I eagerly await your response for why those children deserve to be executed. "Child abuse" can mean a broad range of things, including neglect. Stop being so pedantic. Your playing of devil's advocate for religion was nice at first but now it's just getting sad.
Sheogorath already rebuked the second point, but I'd like to take on the first as a side-discussion. You say you enjoy more freedoms than us. I actually sincerely doubt that. Name me some. Is the fear that there's a decent chance that a person you get into any kind of fight with might pull a gun on you a freedom? And what else is there the US has that the EU doesn't in terms of freedom? I can't think of anything, only more evidence to the contrary by pointing out the looser drug policies we have in my country.
I found this post particularly interesting Eiviyn, and it begged a question for me; what is your view on science, exactly? I'm asking because what you described up here holds true for a LOT of things we do all name as 'science' daily. Economics can't present repeatable, lab-testable proof; all they have is models. Same for psychologists. This holds true for pretty much all social sciences, really. You very much come across as a naturalist (as opposed to a hermeneutic) to me, which makes perfect sense in light of the above argument. Even as a naturalist, though, you stumble across problems when answering the question of God sooner or later, be it in the process of induction or in the process of falsification (neither which is possible [yet] in the case of god). Which would logically lead you to be agnostic, I think? And does that also mean you completely reject all non-biological human sciences?
P.S. Not to sound elitist, but I have literally no idea how well versed you or other readers are in the philosophy of science. I'm still trying to make sense of it myself. Do say so if something sounds odd or off.
@Gradius12: Go
Hrrrmmm, being told to stop being so pedantic by one who himself thrives on details. Not that I can say anything against being pedantic. If I were to stop being pedantic, I would no longer be me. I enjoy going over details, noticing small things, or at least I have learned to. I notice them all anyways, so why not enjoy it? I make no attempt to refute that is a main character trait of mine, in fact I call it an asset.
Moving onto other things... It is obvious you are looking for answers, but I am pretty convinced that you refuse to listen to any given here. Any answer less than you somehow being right and the religious nuts being wrong will result in yet another post, demanding some answer to another Gradius12 cherry-picked riddle of the Bible. I think EternalWraith has done a pretty conistent job on providing answers according to scripture to many of your questions, yet you keep coming back with more and more. If you are so certain we are wrong and you are right, why do you keep at this?
I have no doubt a response will immediately point out, especially by yourself, that I didn't answer your questions. This is true, I won't answer them, as you will not listen. I pointed this out many pages ago in this thread, that no one is willing to listen, and it remains true. Why try to educate those who already have it all figured out about religion as you do. Obviously we should all be looking to those such as yourself for ultimate truth and wisdom, right? Forgive the sarcasm, but the atheists of sc2mapster are proving a terribly arrogant lot, at least those who are keeping this thread going.
As for Soulcarverr, well there isn't a lot to say about his posts on here. He announced he was going to troll at the very start, so the fact that he is doing it should be no surprise. I would agree his grammar is atrocious, I almost think he does it worse on purpose to bother people. Despite his quirks though, I think he has done a fine job of pointing out the amazing amount of hypocrisy occuring on this thread, even if there is about 1 spelling/grammar error per sentence. He is crazy for sure, but still makes a good point that the atheists posting here are exactly what they claim to hate most.
Have fun picking apart this post in any case, I honestly doubt I'll keep up with this thread much longer. Say what you like about me or my religion, but I'm happy with where I'm at and who I am. Can you honestly say the same? I'll simply leave you with Matthew 11:25, as it describes your problem rather well. Can't keep overthinking everything forever Gradius :)
I'm a biochemist, or someone who studies chemistry in biology.
Your examples are things which involve people. You may as well have said "If I get 100 people to guess a number between 1 and 10, why can't science predict it?" It probably can, but not to much accuracy.
Economics follows the above. It can be studied, but at the end of the day it's inaccurate because it's based on what people do, rather than what nature does.
Nature is consistent. People are not. This is why, as you say, social sciences are less predictable than natural sciences like chemistry, physics and biology.
Since your guys' cause is already hopeless enough I'll give you a tip. Religious fervor and religious trolling are indistinguishable. It serves my cause more to treat him like like he's being serious, because nobody can tell the difference anyway. Soulcarver is an atheist factory.
The only thing he's done a good job at is explicitly ignoring the posts I've made. It's easy for him to come in and say "lerl, I am going to troll this thread guyz," but I think I'll just continue treating him as if he's an idiot in real life, because he probably is. That's the sad thing about religious extremists.
Which one was your favorite? I particularly enjoyed "it's not genocide, it's just god killing evil people (and the children/animals because God is too incompetent to think of a simpler solution)". Or "it's not rape, it's people taking away wives from their bad husbands so they can be taken care of!"
Ah yes, "Ignorance is bliss." I tried that for 17 years. Trust me, it's nothing to be happy about. Do not mistake my discontent with religion that it so justly deserves as my attitude with life in general. In fact, I have a greater appreciation for the universe and my life now than I did when I was a theist because I now realize that this is the only chance I get. What are the odds that you were born? They're astronomical, and you should be thankful to have been born into a scientific and economic golden age. For tens of thousands of years before this, every human fought tooth and nail to survive and died young. We enjoy luxuries such as never seen before.
Nowhere did anybody say that. You are simply offended that people question your faith. This picture cannot be posted enough:
The religious right simply has too much power. So long as people such as yourself continue to enable this and associate criticism and skepticism with "arrogance", innovation will continue to be dragged down and anti-scientific beliefs will continue to dominate. Senseless killing such as this will continue forever: http://teapotatheism.blogspot.com/2008/06/anonymous-wanted-body-count-total-so-he.html
That is, unless we kill IT at its heart through intellectual discourse. Your question should not be, "why are atheists pissed off at religion?" Your question should be "after all that religion has done to repress humanity, why am I the one that's not offended?" And you should also ask yourself whether the transient comfort it provides you is really worth the welfare of future generations, or whether you even care or have the foresight to think like this, given that you care more about heaven in some imaginary afterlife as opposed to creating one here on Earth.
Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Grad, what you show there in your interpretation of the words has a point. People misquote things, and when a mob has come to believe that women wearing jeans is damnable to hell, there's clearly a problem. I forgot what its called but it's a problem of theology with which many things come up that become contentious, this is why the core of the message must always be established prior to any dissection. It's a huge undertaking to be a preacher, and must not be taken lightly. Afterall, Gangnam style spread like wildfire for some reason other than the lyrics I'm sure.
Intent drives the message, ergo, we have so many denominations. You make a good point there.
Eiviyn, I don't know much about the world of Biology but this seems interesting. What are your thoughts on this:
It speaks about irreducible complexity.
Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.