Topics

16

Debate & Discuss / Evidence for Design

« on: August 25, 2010, 06:18:40 pm »Message ID: 226238

...Moronic Design  

"There is copious evidence that the creator of the universe had no idea what he was doing. If the universe was created by an intelligence that was actually intelligent, then we would expect all sorts of evidence of perfection -- consistently brilliant design, no need for change over time, some sense of higher purpose, etc. Instead, what we have is a collection of systems that seems slapped together and that must occasionally be thrown out so that the creator can give it another go (just as a trilobite!)

We will list just a few bits of evidence for moronic design here, avoiding more obvious examples like Uri Geller fans, Scientology, and Cher. Please feel free to send us any examples you think should be included in this list.

1) The human eye has a blind spot -- and you can't see it.
2) The continents keep moving around and running into each other, causing earthquakes, volcanoes, and other potentially fatal inconveniences.
3) African locusts have the nerves necessary to run their wings located in their abdomens, which is like having the switch for your bedside lamp in the kitchen.
4) We don't want to get into the details of the human male prostate gland and urethra, but believe us, they're problematic.
5) Pandas have five fingers and a thumb that's all bony, making some natural thumb activities (e.g., hitchhiking) impossible.
6) The human appendix is of dubious necessity and sometimes explodes.
7) Compared with those of many other primates, human toes aren't good for much other than nail painting.
8 ) You can't go faster than the speed of light, making interstellar travel inconvenient at best.
9) Many animals don't mind drinking the same water they go to the bathroom in (ew!)
10) Viruses are so weird that we can't even decide if they're alive or not and they serve no useful purpose, unless you consider killing, causing discomfort, or making an evil cosmological power laugh at meaningless suffering a useful purpose.
11) Quantum physics, which just makes no sense at all.
12) Insects are sometimes born with legs instead of antennae, snakes sometimes have an extra head, and there are conjoined twins all over the place.
13) Humans grow wisdom teeth, but often don't have anywhere in their mouth to put them.
14) Pluto isn't quite a planet and isn't quite a rock, and has a seriously weird orbit.
15) A flounder's eyes won't stay put.
16) Leeches sometimes swell up so much with blood that they pop.
17) The bombardier beetle -- what intelligent being would give weapons like that to a bug?
18) Some insect species have males that don't live after losing their virginity.
19) Honey bees often die after stinging an enemy.
20) Cows, whales, and many other animals without toes have toe bones.
21) Animals that live in the water but can't breathe water.
22) The human "funny bone," which isn't really funny at all.
23) Kiwis have wings that aren't good for anything, not even eating.
24) Nipples for men.
25) Stuff in outer space keeps running into each other.
26) There is a type of lizard called the cnemdophorus, and every single one of them is female.
27) With alarming consistency, the most intelligent creatures in existence throw out the evidence of their senses and intellect in favor of beliefs that are hundreds or even thousands of years out of date."

http://www.moronicdesign.com/evidence.html

Video resources:

God vs Satan: Perfect Design - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Jgksk0nWI
God's Cool Designs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcrq5OOkQdk
High Stakes Intelligent Designing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_G9awnDCmg
Yahweh's Delicious Creation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKtuk0ZpnbY
The Eye of the Python - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7yAEh-PU4M

17

Debate & Discuss / Hell is an Unattended Stove

« on: August 20, 2010, 10:05:43 am »Message ID: 223487

Hell is an Unattended Stove?
by Astreja

You've probably heard various Christians make the following statement, or a variation on it:

"God doesn't send us to Hell; we send ourselves there."

Let's take a close look at the above assertion.

First of all, there's an implicit assumption that an individual will have an actual choice to go to either the Nice Place or the Not-So-Nice place, somehow overriding the Divine Will of the omnipotent and omniscient Biblegod. This flies in the face of at least one variant of Christianity, Calvinism, which asserts that Biblegod has already picked out the "saved" and discarded everyone else.

Secondly, it is also assumed that Biblegod will not only know about this person's "choice" but knew about it in advance, and permits it to happen anyway. The usual excuse given for this is that Biblegod does not want to impose upon our free will.

Does anyone else see the problem with this?

I present the analogy of the Parent and the Unattended Stove. A small child toddles into the kitchen. In that kitchen is a stove with all the burners turned to 'High', and a ladder conveniently located right next to the stove. The child climbs the ladder, and falls off it onto the blazing stove.

Oh, and did I mention that the Parent is standing just footsteps away, washing dishes in the sink?

At this point, what Christian apologists would have us believe is that this is somehow all the fault of the child -- Who is now on fire and screaming in agony. To you, ladies and gentlemen, I just have this to say:

What kind of parent would go to the stove, turn all the burners on, put a ladder beside the stove, watch their own child climb that ladder, allow the child to fall onto the stove, and then just stand there for eternity and let the child scream?

The "free will" argument is a red herring, and a convenient excuse for not confronting the immorality of Biblegod. Any parent worthy of the name would rescue the child at the first possible opportunity, without even considering the child's "free will." Better yet, a conscientious parent would childproof the kitchen to prevent such catastrophes from happening in the first place -- And again, "free will" has nothing to do with it. It's just good parenting.

You do not do your god honour with this kind of argument, by the way. It makes your invisible friend look like a maniac, and it makes you look like a thoughtless dolt.

Please give serious consideration to the above, and stop making excuses for the inexcusable.

http://new.exchristian.net/2010/05/hell-is-unattended-stove.html

18

Debate & Discuss / The Bigger Picture

« on: August 17, 2010, 02:48:29 pm »Message ID: 222100

Surprising Statistics:

Number of atheists/agnostics/non-religious WORLDWIDE in:

1993 - 969,000,000 million (18.3% of the world population)
1997 - 1,169,939,840 billion (20+% of the world population)
1999 - 850,000,000 million
2005 - 749,247,571 million (~12% of the world population)

I just KNOW someone is going to comment on the numbers going down; well you have to realize, we had billions of less people in previous years.  There's thousands of new jihadists being born every day.  

The fact remains, NON-RELIGION is the third most popular stance on religion, after Christianity and Islam, of course!  Just food for thought for those of you who think the unbelieving are a "minority"!

Interesting quote from 1965:

"Twentieth-century intellectual man has increasingly divorced himself from his former identity as homo religious and has embraced instead a philosophy of the non-transcendent.  The non-religious man (the term would mean almost nothing in the ancient world) has become a reality.  Mircea Eliade has done much to characterize him: 'The non-religious man refuses transcendence, accepts the relativity of 'reality' and may even come to doubt the meaning of existence... Modern non-religious man assumes a new existential situation; he regards himself solely as the subject and agent of history, and he refuses all appeal to transcendence. In other words, he accepts no model for humanity outside the human condition as it can be seen by the various historical situations... The sacred is the prime obstacle to his freedom.  He will become himself only when he is totally demysticized.  He will not be truly free until he has killed the last god.'"

Source = http://www.adherents.com/Na/Na_478.html

19

Debate & Discuss / Logical Arguments Against the Existence of God

« on: July 24, 2010, 03:19:41 pm »Message ID: 211515

Excerpted from:
Why the Christian God is Impossible
by Chad Docterman

"Defining YHWH

Before we can discuss the existence of a thing, we must define it. Christians have endowed their God with all of the following attributes: He is eternal, all-powerful, and created everything. He created all the laws of nature and can change anything by an act of will. He is all-good, all-loving, and perfectly just. He is a personal God who experiences all of the emotions a human does. He is all-knowing. He sees everything past and future.

God's creation was originally perfect, but humans, by disobeying him, brought imperfection into the world. Humans are evil and sinful, and must suffer in this world because of their sinfulness. God gives humans the opportunity to accept forgiveness for their sin, and all who do will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven, but while they are on earth, they must suffer for his sake. All humans who choose not to accept this forgiveness must go to hell and be tormented for eternity.

...

Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
 
What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.
 

Perfection Begets Imperfection
 
But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.
 
What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.


The Freewill Argument
 
The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.
 
Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.
 
Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.

Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans [and 1/3 of the supposed angels] do differently?
 
The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.
 

All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
 
God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.
 

Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins
 
God is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely more unjust than this punishment. The absurd injustice of this infinite punishment is even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of human imperfection is the God who created them. A perfectly just God who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible.


Belief More Important Than Action
 
...Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just God would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions.


Perfection's Imperfect Revelation
 
The Bible is supposedly God's perfect Word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this God to provide us with this means of overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful God could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man.
 
No two men will ever agree what this perfect word of God is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self- contradictory, or obscured by enigmatic symbols. And yet the perfect God expects us imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us [in an obvious, no-nonsense, clear-as-day manner], rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man.

...

The Omniscient Changes the Future
 
A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.


The Omniscient is Surprised
 
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.
 
We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible."

You can read the full article here: http://www.evilbible.com/Impossible.htm


THIS THREAD IS DEDICATED TO THE DISCUSSION OF THE LOGICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE EXISTENCE OF PERSONAL GODS (like I posted above).

20

Debate & Discuss / Boycott marieelissa

« on: July 19, 2010, 10:03:06 am »Message ID: 208882

Here's another example of shameful "Christian" behavior for ya:

Last night user marieelissa deleted over 500 of her posts, including threads she had started, which in turn deleted over 100 of MY posts (and posts of many other people).  Threads like "10 Reasons Not to Believe in God" contained good information that she maliciously stole from this forum.

So let this be a warning to everyone: don't bother posting in ANY thread that she starts (there's a million to choose from, I know, but please resist).  You're just wasting your time when she ups and deletes it.

21

Support / Post count mysteriously lowered

« on: July 19, 2010, 09:26:43 am »Message ID: 208857

When I logged on today I noticed my total post count has gone down by over 100.  Yesterday it was approaching 700, and now it's not even 600.  I'd like to know what the reason for this is??  Does it have to do with people deleting threads, is it a glitch, or did someone delete 100 posts of mine without my permission?

A fast response is appreciated.  Thanks admin

22

Debate & Discuss / Debunking Near Death Experiences (NDEs)

« on: July 16, 2010, 06:18:51 pm »Message ID: 207740

Excerpted from http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/jansen1.html:

"Near-death experiences (NDE's) can be reproduced by ketamine via blockade of receptors in the brain (the N-methyl-D-aspartate, NMDA receptors) for the neurotransmitter glutamate. Conditions which precipitate NDE's (hypoxia, ischaemia, hypoglycaemia, temporal lobe epilepsy etc.) have been shown to release a flood of glutamate, overactivating NMDA receptors resulting in neuro ('excito') toxicity. Ketamine prevents this neurotoxicity. There are substances in the brain which bind to the same receptor site as ketamine. Conditions which trigger a glutamate flood may also trigger a flood of neuroprotective agents which bind to NMDA receptors to protect cells, leading to an altered state of consciousness like that produced by ketamine. This article extends and updates the theory proposed in 1990 (Jansen, 1990b).

The near-death experience (NDE) is a phenomenon of considerable importance to medicine, neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, philosophy and religon (Stevenson and Greyson, 1979; Greyson and Stevenson, 1980; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982; Jansen, 1989a,b, 1990b). Unfortunately, some scientists have been deterred from conducting research upon the NDE by claims that NDE's are evidence for life after death, and sensationalist media reports which impart the air of a pseudoscience to NDE studies. Irrespective of religous beliefs, NDE's are not evidence for life after death on simple logical grounds: death is defined as the final, irreversible end. Anyone who 'returned' did not, by definition, die - although their mind, brain and body may have been in a very unusual state.
There is overwhelming evidence that 'mind' results from neuronal activity. The dramatic effects on the mind of adding hallucinogenic drugs to the brain, and the religious experiences which sometimes result, provide further evidence for this (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1981). One of the many contradictions which 'after-lifers' can not resolve is that "the spirit rises out of the body leaving the brain behind, but somehow still incorporating neuronal functions such as sight, hearing, and proprioception" (Morse, 1989, original italics).

...

Ketamine administered by intravenous injection, in appropriate dosage, is capable of reproducing all of the features of the NDE which have been commonly described in the most cited works in this field, and the following account is based upon these (Domino et al., 1965; Rumpf, 1969; Collier, 1972; Siegel,1978, 1980, 1981; Stafford, 1977; Lilly, 1978; Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1981; White, 1982; Ghoniem et al., 1985; Sputz, 1989; Jansen, 1989a, b,1990b, 1991c, 1993). Important features of NDE's include a sense that what is experienced is 'real' and that one is actually dead, a sense of ineffability, timelessness, and feelings of calm and peace, although some cases have been frightening. There may be analgesia, apparent clarity of thought, a perception of separation from the body, and hallucinations of landscapes, beings such as 'angels', people including partners, parents, teachers and friends (who may be alive at the time), and religious and mythical figures. Transcendant mystical states are commonly described. Memories may emerge into consciousness, and are rarely organised into a 'life review' (Greyson, 1983).

Hearing noises during the initial part of the NDE has also been described (Noyes and Kletti, 1976a; Morse et al., 1985; Osis and Haraldsson, 1977; Greyson and Stevenson, 1980; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1982). Ring (1980) classified NDE's on a 5 stage continuum: 1.feelings of peace and contentment; 2.a sense of detachment from the body; 3. entering a transitional world of darkness (rapid movements through tunnels: 'the tunnel experience'); 4. emerging into bright light; and 5. 'entering the light'. 60% experienced stage 1, but only 10% attained stage 5 (Ring, 1980). As might be expected in a mental state with a neurobiological origin, more mundane accounts also occur, e.g. children who may 'see' their schoolfellows rather than God and angels (Morse, 1985). It is clear that NDE's are not as homogeneous as some have claimed.

...

A psychologist with experience of LSD described ketamine as 'experiments in voluntary death' (Leary, 1983, p375). Sputz (1989, p65) noted:'one infrequent ketamine user reported a classic near-death experience..."I was convinced I was dead. I was floating above my body. I reviewed all of the events of my life and saw a lot of areas where I could have done better". The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof stated: "If you have a full-blown experience of ketamine, you can never believe there is death or that death can possibly influence who you are" (Stevens, 1989, p481-482). 'Ketamine allows some patients to reason that ...the strange, unexpected intensity and unfamiliar dimension of their experience means they must have died..' (Collier, 1981, p552).

...

Hypercarbia: a CO2-enriched breathing mixture can result in typical NDE phenomena such as bodily detachment and the perception of being drawn towards a bright light.

...

2. Regression in the service of the ego: confronting death cuts off the external world resulting in regression to a pre-verbal level. This is experienced as mystical ineffability (Greyson, 1983). Losing contact with the external world is one of the most typical effects of ketamine. This is partially due to blockade of NMDA receptors involved in sensory transmission. NMDA receptors play a central role in the transmission of data from all sensory modalities (Davies and Watkins, 1983; Greenamyre et al., 1984; Headley et al., 1985; Cotman et al., 1987; Cline et al.,1987; Monaghan, Bridges and Cotman, 1988; Kisvardy et al., 1989; Oye et al., 1992).

3. State dependant reactivation of birth memories (Grof and Halifax, 1977). Movement through tunnels towards light may be a memory of being born : a 'near-birth experience'. NMDA receptor blockade could be the mechanism for such a reactivation of primitive memories.

4. Sensory deprivation: memories may normally be suppressed by a 'gate' which admits primarily external signals when we are fully conscious and concentrating upon an external task (Siegel,1980, 1981). If this input is dramatically reduced (e.g. by ketamine or a heart attack) in combination with central stimulation (e.g. by excessive glutamate release during hypoxia, epilepsy, or arising without external provocation), stored perceptions are released and become 'organised' into a meaningful experience by psychodynamic forces in the mind in question (Greyson, 1983). The 'white light' may result from CNS stimulation , and also a possible lowering of the phosphene perceptual threshold (Siegel,1980, 1981). Sensory deprivation can produce profound alterations in consciousness (Lilly, 1961,1978).

...

Spiritualists have sometimes seen scientific explanations of NDE's as dull and reductionist. However, the exploration of the mind-brain interface is one of the most exciting adventures which humans have ever undertaken. The real reductionism lies in attempts to draw a mystical shroud over the NDE, and to belittle the substantial evidence in favour of an scientific explanation."

23

Debate & Discuss / Militant Atheists

« on: July 11, 2010, 05:57:18 pm »Message ID: 205245

Some background info...a few days ago, a teenaged family member of mine posted this statement on her social network profile: "obnoxious atheists are annoying".  This was a direct (although passive-aggressive) attack against ME.  A real b*tch move, considering all I did was post a link in her comments (and not even say anything along with it) to a website that showed the passages in the Bible that support slavery, relating to her post about how slavery had been outlawed in a particular state on that day.  It's not like I respond to her profile in this way all the time...I have a record of plenty of mundane responses that have nothing to do with the god issue.  I just thought it wouldn't kill her and whomever chose to visit it to be open-minded and LEARN some things, that's why I posted it.

I think if she didn't want it there she should have just deleted it and messaged me privately, telling me it bothered her, and I would have made note of that.  I honestly did not know she would react so sensitively to something like that, otherwise I wouldn't have posted it.  But for her to be immature about it to boot and stereotype me in a negative light is what upset me.

Anyway, the day after that happened, I log into YouTube and this is one of the videos I had recommended to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulAl4OjwvG4&playnext_from=TL&videos=fVGVyPayX-c

I thought it was so sweet and beautiful, I almost thought there was a god for a sec for it being suggested to me.  lol   

Let me know your thoughts on the video and this prejudiced term "militant atheist"!!

24

Debate & Discuss / I thought this was brilliant

« on: June 20, 2010, 09:57:32 am »Message ID: 194052

Some background info: the following is in response to a 17-year-old guy who is in the process of deconverting from Christianity but worries his life is going to be useless and depressing without god.  You can read the full comments here: http://new.exchristian.net/2010/06/without-god-whats-point.html

"Hey Jon,
By the time I was your age I was passing bibles out downtown, my pastor let me preach, and I led prayer groups in high school. Not to toot my horn but give you an Idea of how serious I took my faith.
I was also incredibly depressed,unhappy and suicidal.. I was so militant/absolutist in my thinking, I was quickly going to a very dark place. If I was born in Islam, I would have been a suicide bomber without a doubt. When you leave christainity, it doesnt mean you are abandoning your feelings of a higher power, nor does it mean you suddenly are going to become an unethical person, not wanting to do good things.

Now years have past, and I have deprogrammed myself from the cult of christianity, and coming from the perspective of both sides I realize how ugly life was looking thru the eyes of christianity. when in reality we live in such a interesting, mysterious , beautiful world when we ceace to " spiritualize" every single thing into black/white.

Think about this christian perspective and you tell me is this is positive and good ..

1.Most every body is going to hell forever to suffer eternal pain forever and ever and ever

2.The world/universe is ugly, full of sin.

3. Satan is always wispering in your ear trying to tempt you to sin.

4.All non-christians deny the Truth and are the enemy of God

5.Natural human biological drives are sinful.

6. You are worthless worthy of eternal suffering.

7. Some people go to Hell because they think God is too loving to send people to Hell.

8. God made billions of people knowing that they will suffer eternal pain for 100,000 trillion years plus forever.

9. This Earth is soon to be destroyed,so who cares about the environment, biodiversity.. Its all piosioned with sin, its ugly. Its value is secondary. There is no inherent beauty in it.

10. Spend your entire physical existence fantasizing about how wonderful the after life will be. Learn to view your life on earth with disgust, because its all evil.

11. Demonize and dehumanize your human brothers and sisters, because they all deserve Gods eternal *bleep* death camp. Judge everything they say and do as spiritualy dead and probably evil.

12. Let your guilt consume your mind...its God talking to you.

13. always live with the realization that your never good enough for GOd.

14. who cares about science, education? Its secondary to the bible.


.......tell me John if this creates a wonderful healthy view of life and humanity?
My experiences inside christianity and outside... I know without a doubt that christians are the most unhappy depressed dysfunctional paranoid abusive culture I have ever experienced."

~ by drhomeskooled

25

Debate & Discuss / If I were a Christian, I'd claim this as proof of "god"...

« on: June 14, 2010, 02:46:52 pm »Message ID: 191895

So my husband just came home and tells me that when he was getting out of his training class, he saw an ambulance and police cars in the parking lot.  At first he thought it might be for some poor guy who got caught running in the heat (there is a track nearby), but as he walked closer, he saw a black Mustang smashed into a line of cars, the same line of cars in which he parked in!  The ambulance and police car were blocking the sight of our car, so he was pretty worried before he got to it.  Alas, there were 3 smashed cars in a row, with the white car parked next to ours visibly moved but not touching ours.  So all of the cars in that line got wrecked, but not ours, which was parked on the end!

Hubby says he had two choices of parking spots in that line when he initially parked, and decided to go with the one on the end to get a better angle backing out.  The other spot would have been the very first one, a.k.a. the one that received the most damage!  He also says that a week ago he was thinking about what would happen if a car were to barrel through the parking lot, how many cars would it smash?  That's not him being psychic, he just always things about weird things like that. 

** Moral of the story: be an atheist, because then your car won't get smashed! **

Haha, j/k.  I feel really bad for the other 3 people.

REAL moral of the story: this is not proof for god, but is totally an example of something a Christian might use for their "god proof".  These types of experiences happen to everyone!!

P.S.  Stop driving fast in your fancy cars, people.  Ya see what happens??

26

Debate & Discuss / Serious questions for believers

« on: June 04, 2010, 01:53:19 pm »Message ID: 188325

I want this post to have believers of God to stop and think for a few minutes about something they've probably never considered before.  Hypothetically, if it could be proven to you that god doesn't exist and you now had to accept this, that there is nothing after you die, and if most of your church withdrew their positions of belief in light of scientific evidence:

1) How would you feel? (depressed, neutral, relieved, etc.)
2) How do you think it might change your life?

Basically, no matter the amount of faith you have right now, I want to get you thinking about the alternative if god didn't exist and have some honest answers because it is something I am curious about and think is healthy for people to ponder about.  Would it really be that bad for you if you learned there was no god (that they were all invented by man)?  Again, hypothetically.